Faig Ahmed to Represent Azerbaijan at 2026 Venice Biennale
16March 2, 2026
Sumqayit, Azerbaijan–born artistFaig Ahmedhas been chosen to represent his home country at the Sixty-FirstVenice Biennale, to open May 9 and run through November 11. Ahmed, who is known for his surrealist weavings, previously represented Azerbaijan in a group exhibition at its inaugural Biennale pavilion in 2007. His exhibition here, titled “The Attention,” will be curated by Gwendolyn Collaço and responds to the Biennale’s larger theme, “In Minor Keys,” put forward by its late curator, Koyo Kouoh. The pavilion is being realized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, with support from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Italy, and the Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum.
Born in 1982, Ahmed lives and works in Baku. Working across installation, video, technology-based works, and research-driven projects, he investigates human perception and response to art. At the 2026 Biennale, his pavilion will center on the Sufi concept ofFana, the annihilation of self to achieve a collective awakening, and will posit quantum physics as the contemporary counterpart to fifteenth-century Hurufi mysticism. Ahmed will debut new large-scale, site-specific commissions, transforming the sixteenth-century Campo de la Atana into an immersive, sensory environment. Among the works on display will beI Can Contain Both Worlds but I Do Not Fit Into This One, a carpet spanning every room of the Campo. Conceived of as a living, breathing body, and accompanied by various soundtracks, the textile will unite the other works on display, includingEntropy Altar, which generates random numbers, yielding unpredictable patterns and touches on the human need to find meaning in data.
“Resonating across centuries, the exhibition reconfigures our ways of navigating contemporary conditions of fragmentation, information overload, and existential uncertainty,” read a press release. “At the same time, it underscores both Azerbaijan’s commitment to supporting ambitious, conceptually driven artistic practices on the international stage and the country’s active engagement with pioneering discourses in global contemporary art.”