2026 Venice Biennale Will Hew to Late Curator Koyo Kouoh’s Vision
191May 28, 2025
The organizers of theVenice Biennaletodayannouncedthat the sixty-first edition of the event will go ahead in accordance with the plan laid out by its curator,Koyo Kouoh, before herdeathfrom cancer on May 10. Kouoh, the chief curator of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town and the first African woman chosen to curate the Biennale, had been working on the main exhibition for seven months and was just days away from revealing its theme when she died.
Titled “In Minor Keys,” as Kouoh had wished, the event will take place as originally scheduled, running from May 9 to November 22, 2026. Kouoh’s vision for the event will be realized by five advisers with whom she had been working, and whom she chose herself. These are curators Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helene Pereira, and Rasha Salti; critic Siddhartha Mitter, the Biennale’s editor in chief; and researcher Rory Tsapayi, who will serve as the team’s assistant.
In addition to making a press release available, Biennale officials held a news conference in Venice on May 27 to discuss the Biennale’s direction in the wake of Kouoh’s passing. The New York Times reported that curator and team member Beckhurst Feijoo, speaking at the event, affirmed that the Biennale would be “neither a litany of commentary on world events, nor an inattention or escape from compounding and continuously intersecting crises” but would instead present, as Kouoh had wanted, “a radical reconnection with art’s natural habitat and role in society—that is the emotional, the visual, the sensory, the affective, the subjective.”
Full details of the Biennale, including the names of all participating artists and countries as well as the event’s graphic identity and exhibition design, will be revealed on February 25, 2026.