2026 Gwangju Biennale Announces Participants, Including Matthew Barney and CAMP

2026 Gwangju Biennale Announces Participants, Including Matthew Barney and CAMP

The 16th edition of theGwangju Biennalewill debut this September 5 and run until to November 15, and the list of forty-three participating artists and groups has just beenannounced. The illustrious lineup includes contemporary artist, filmmaker and ex-husband of singer Björk,Matthew Barney; the artist studioCAMPfrom Mumbai; and Turkish multidisciplinary artistİnci Eviner.

The title of this year’s edition, “You Must Change Your Life,” was pulled from the ending of a Rainer Maria Rilke poem entitledArchaic Torso of Apollo. Thematically, the Biennale will explore how ritualistic forms of artistic practice can facilitate change. Each artist and group participating in the Biennale approaches change in a different way: Rafik Greiss will explore Sufism, a body of spiritual practice within Islam, through movement and breath. Painter Rim Dong Sik’s creations, meanwhile, are deeply preoccupied with nature and its ever-evolving permutations.

This year’s lead curator for the Biennale is Ho Tzu Nyen, a Singaporean filmmaker and artist who represented Singapore at the 2011 Venice Biennale. He’s also, of course, an increasingly in-demand curator who co-curated 2019’s Asian Art Biennale in Taiwan. Ho has curated the 2026 Gwangju Biennale alongside Che Kyongfa, Park Gahee, and Brian Kuan Wood in addition to assistant curators Lee Yein and Koyuri Sato.

“We imagine this exhibition moving viewers across different scales and speeds of change,” Ho said in March. “Few cities embody the ideals and the experience of change more powerfully than Gwangju, whose history of democratic struggle continues to resonate globally. Here, change is not abstract—it is lived history.” 

Additionally, this year’s Biennale will feature the lowest number of participating artists and groups since the first edition of the event, which took place in 1995. 

“We are focusing on the density of works rather than expanding scale,” Ho said of the 2026 Biennale’s organizing principles at a press conference on March 13. “While biennales typically gather single pieces by many artists like dots, this time we will connect individual works as lines to reveal the form of artistic practice that has continued over a long period.” 

The full list of participants is below.

Matthew BarneyJean BarthJames BenningMona BenyaminRossella BiscottiCAMPNina CanellLygia ClarkKiri Dalena & Ben BrixA K Dolvenİnci EvinerAngela GohGoldin+SennebyJacqueline Kiyomi GorkRafik GreissAmanda HengHeo Baekryeon (Gwangju Agricultural Technical High School)James T. HongTehching HsiehSohrab HuraSaodat IsmailovaVolcanoes of Jeju (Jeju Stone Park)Jeong GeumhyungE Roon KangSunik KimJúlius KollerDaisuke KosugiKwon Byungjun and Park Chan-kyongLu YangMay Mothers HouseMelvin MotiNam HwayeonChristian NyampetaBhenji RaRim Dong Sik and Nature Artist Woo Pyongnam (Jongsun)Ryu HankilSasaki KenSuzuki AkioUllimsanbang (Huh Ryeon, Huh Hyeong, Huh Geon, Huh Lim, Huh Moon, Hur Jin)Wang JiahaoWang TuoMaya Watanabe