First Pavilions Announced for 2026 Venice Biennale

Though the SixtiethVenice Biennaleremains open through November 24, four countries have already announced the artists who will represent them at the sixty-first iteration of the event, to open in April 2026. The curator and theme for the iteration have yet to be announced.

Ireland is the latest country to make its selection, revealing on November 6 that Dublin-based artist Isabel Nolan will represent the nation. One of Ireland’s best-known contemporary artists, Nolan through a practice encompassing sculpture, textiles, paintings, drawings, photography, and writing, investigates themes including cosmology, history, religion, mythology, mortality, and love. Georgina Jackson, director of The Douglas Hyde Gallery of Contemporary Art at Trinity College, Dublin, will curate the pavilion.

Following an open call by the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art, Estonia on October 24 named Merike Estna as its representative at the Biennale. A formalist painter atypically incorporating craft techniques and traditions, Estna is based between Tallinn and Mexico City. The pavilion selection jury in a statement praised her “insistence on situating painting at the intersection of performance and the social,” further noting that “her approach shows how traditional media can be re-invented as tools to regenerate a collective trust in art.” No curator has yet been announced for her pavilion.

Also on October 24, Tehran-born artist Abbas Akhavan was announced as Canada’s representative. Living and working in both Montreal and Berlin, Akhavan is known for drawings, videos, sculptures, performances, and site-specific installations investigating through the lenses of architecture, the economy, and society, the geopolitical powers that define history and territory. Akhavan is particularly interested in the domestic sphere, which he described in a 2019 ArtAsiaPacific interview as “a forked space between hospitality and hostility.” A curator for the pavilion has not been named to date.

Luxembourg was first out of the gate on September 11, with the news that its pavilion would be devoted to the work of Aline Bouvy and curated by Stilbé Schroeder. Bouvy, who divides her time between Belgium and Luxembourg, examines ideas of beauty and repulsion as well as the relationship between the body and space through a practice spanning sculpture, drawing, photography, and sound.