The Venice Biennale 2026, In Minor Keys by Koyo Kouoh will run from Saturday 9 May to Sunday 22 November 2026 at the Giardini, the Arsenale and in various locations around Venice. The pre-opening will take place on May 6, 7, and 8, while the awards ceremony and inauguration will be held on Saturday, May 9, 2026.
After the premature passing of Koyo Kouoh in May 2025, with the full support of her family, La Biennale di Venezia decided to carry out her Exhibition, with the purpose of preserving, enhancing and widely disseminating her ideas and the work she pursued with such dedication to the very end. Koyo Kouoh, nominated as the Artistic Director of the Visual Arts Department in November 2024, already developed the curatorial project, defining its theoretical framework, selecting the artists and the artworks, designating the authors of the catalogue, determining the graphic identity of the Exhibition and the architecture of the exhibition spaces, and establishing a dialogue with the artists invited to participate.
In Minor Keys is the title chosen by Koyo Kouoh for the 61st International Art Exhibition, as specified in the curatorial text, which was sent to the President of La Biennale on 8 April 2025. The Exhibition will be realised with the contribution of the team selected by Koyo: Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Hélène Pereira and Rasha Salti (advisors); Siddhartha Mitter (editor-in-chief); and Rory Tsapayi (research assistant).
During the presentation in Venice, at Ca’ Giustinian, headquarters of the La Biennale di Venezia, they were the ones who outlined the work carried out together with Koyo for the 61st International Art Exhibition. This work culminated in a significant meeting held in Dakar in April 2025 at RAW Material Company — the cultural center founded by Kouoh — and led by the Curator herself. That experience remains emblematic of the way she conceived curatorial practice: grounded in relationships and open to the unexpected.
“That week in Dakar – stated Koyo’s Team – was the edifying week that defined the 61st International Art Exhibition. We mapped practices and projects, we identified resonances, affinities, synchronicities and conversations, we extracted motifs to structure the exhibition and pillars on which to draw it. Notions like enchantment, seeding, commoning, and generative practices that invite collectivities, emerged organically. On the last day of our convention, after reckoning that we had accomplished the most daunting milestone, Koyo assigned missions to each of us. The exhibition had found its manifest forms, it was no longer intention, nor abstraction. We could hear the music she so gracefully composed with us, under the generous guardianship of the mango tree.”
Koyo’s Team, with members based in different cities around the world — Gabe in London, Marie Hélène between Dakar and Berlin, Rasha between Beirut and Marseille, Rory in Cape Town, and Siddhartha in New York City — has in recent months continued the work of producing the Exhibition, engaging La Biennale in a special effort during the project’s development phase, particularly the Visual Arts Department. Remote work through online meetings, combined with in-person seminars held in Venice in May and October 2025 and in Dakar in June 2025, enabled the Team to work alongside the Biennale while being distributed across several continents. This gave rise to an intense, multilayered, and deeply shared process, in which each contribution enriched the collective construction of the Exhibition.
The 111 invited participants of this exhibition – among them, individual artists, collaborative duos, collectives, and artist-led organisations – hail from many geographies and regions selected by Koyo with particular attention to resonances, affinity, and and possible convergences between practices, even when far apart. In looking to artists working in Salvador, Dakar, San Juan, Beirut, Paris, or Nashville, for example, Koyo sought to envision how their ingenuity, breadth of material experimentation, and visionary ideas bear connections to other artists and movements in simultaneity. In this spirit, In Minor Keys expands upon Koyo’s relational geography of encounters with artists over her lifetime.
Concepts
Motifs. Koyo saw several conceptual motifs guiding the exhibition. These were not abstractly determined but rather sifted from a reservoir of art that acts deeply on the soul and mind. They brought into focus a compositional method for the exhibition, which is not organised according to sections but rather in respect of undercurrent priorities. Among these are “Shrines” – in which prominence is given to the practices of two lodestar artists while exceeding a retrospective impulse; processional assemblies; enchantment in the face of cynicism about what art can do; spiritual and physical rest opened up by the oases – the keys or small islands of artists’ universes; and finally, Koyo’s commitment to artist-centred institution building or “Schools”, in which energy and resource is directed towards a social purpose.
Literary references. These strands leap from practice to practice, snaking an intergenerational path to build across the sites of In Minor Keys. During the curatorial work, many ideas resonated with the literary references shared by Koyo as sources of inspiration, among them, Beloved by Toni Morrison and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, texts that connect in their evocation of thresholds between lifeworlds and temporalities and by a magical realism which deepens rather than distracts from an emotional register.
Shrines. Sala Chini, which leads visitors to the core of the Central Pavilion, announces the vocabulary of the “Shrines”, which Koyo envisaged as tributes to two incandescent worldmakers: Issa Samb (1945–2017) and Beverly Buchanan (1940–2015). An artist, poet, playwright, and co-founder of the revolutionary collective Laboratoire Agit’Art in Dakar, Samb was an enduring presence, mentor, and inspiration for Koyo, who honoured his practice and life philosophy in international projects. Buchanan’s artmaking, which Koyo encountered more recently, encompassed subtle and confronting readings of locations and communities through anti-monumental approaches to Land Art and public sculpture, which she often placed in sites of charged memory. Both artists recognised the significance of art as generative, surpassing mere objecthood, and evading conventional preservation.
Procession. The procession’s motif, inspired by carnival choreographies and Afro-Atlantic gatherings, expresses a dynamic spacial language in which joining the crowd, rather than observing, is requisite and implied. In this carnivalesque dimension, capable of suspending and subverting hierarchies, many artistic practices challenge archives and canons, reinterpret established symbols, and demystify dominant narratives through transhistorical, speculative, or rigorous approaches.
Schools. The “Schools” emerge as ecosystems rooted in their local territories and, at the same time, transnational: spaces of learning and regeneration founded on encounter, shared knowledge, and autonomy from market forces. Integrated into the constellation of the exhibition, they reflect a shared ethic and a collaborative practice that intertwines art and social responsibility.
Rest. Themes such as the plantation, colonial settlement, environmental disaster, and geological memory traverse other works, which confront seismic events and their traces through radical and liberatory methods. At the same time, the Creole garden and the courtyard — spaces of self-sufficiency born under conditions of constraint — become both real and metaphorical places of rest, reconnection, and engagement with non-human forms of life. The Exhibition ultimately reflects on the possibility of stepping back from the encyclopedic impulse to make room for rest, contemplation, and deep listening. Multisensory installations encourage rêverie and enchantment, inviting visitors to slow down and allow themselves to be transformed by the experience. Through oases that evoke studios, courtyards, and learning spaces, In Minor Keys conveys the spirit of a project that weaves together collaboration, generosity, and trust in the multiple dimensions of our shared humanity.
Performances. The program of performances centres the body as a site of knowledge and memory, as well as a political vessel for collective resistance and healing.
A procession of poets will take place in the Giardini della Biennale, inspired by Koyo’s Poetry Caravan, a voyage she undertook with nine African poets from Dakar to Timbuktu in 1999. The performance honours her memory and opens a space for poetry and storytelling. It pays homage to the griots those who seek the source human dream to spread the wings of knowledge and power. In the Giardini of La Biennale, poets will assemble to form a chorus vested with the power of the word, the groundswell of recital and spiritual healing.
The 111 invited participants of this exhibition – among them, individual artists, collaborative duos, collectives, and artist-led organisations – hail from many geographies and regions selected by Koyo Kouoh with particular attention to resonances, affinity, and and possible convergences between practices, even when far apart. In looking to artists working in Salvador, Dakar, San Juan, Beirut, Paris, or Nashville, for example, Koyo sought to envision how their ingenuity, breadth of material experimentation, and visionary ideas bear connections to other artists and movements in simultaneity. In this spirit, In Minor Keys expands upon Koyo’s relational geography of encounters with artists over her lifetime.
Participating Artists
Pio Abad, born 1983, Manila, Philippines. Lives in London, UK.
Philip Aguirre y Otegui, born 1961, Schoten, Belgium. Lives in Antwerp, Belgium.
Akinbode Akinbiyi, born 1946, Oxford, UK. Lives in Berlin, Germany.
Laurie Anderson, born 1947, Chicago, IL, USA. Lives in New York City, NY, USA.
Fabrice Aragno, born 1970, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Lives in Lausanne, Switzerland.
arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody, Joy Episalla, Zoe Leonard, Carrie Yamaoka, fierce pussy, Jo-ey Tang
Kader Attia, born, 1970, Dugny, France. Lives in Berlin, Germany and Paris, France.
Sammy Baloji, born 1978, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lives in Brussels, Belgium and Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Ranti Bam, born 1985, Lagos, Nigeria. Lives in Paris, France and Lagos, Nigeria.
Alvaro Barrington, born 1983, Caracas, Venezuela. Lives in London, UK.
Éric Baudelaire, born 1973, Salt Lake City, UT, USA. Lives in Paris, France.
Sabian Baumann, born 1962, Zug, Switzerland. Lives in Zurich, Switzerland.
blaxTARLINES KUMASI, founded 2015, Kumasi, Ghana.
Beverly Buchanan, born 1940, Fuquay, NC, USA. D. 2015.
Seyni Awa Camara, born 1945, Oussouy, Senegal. D. 2026.
Nick Cave, born 1959, Chicago, IL, USA. Lives in Chicago, IL, USA.
Carolina Caycedo, Colombian, born 1978, London, UK. Lives in Los Angeles, CA, USA and Caguas, Puerto Rico.
Annalee Davis, born 1963, St. Michael, Barbados. Lives in St. George, Barbados.
BuBu de la Madeleine, born 1961, Osaka, Japan. Lives in Nara, Japan.
Dawn DeDeaux, born 1952, New Orleans, LA, USA. Lives in New Orleans, LA, USA.
Nolan Oswald Dennis, born 1988, Lusaka, Zambia. Lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Denniston Hill, founded 2008, Glen Wild, NY, USA.
Bonnie Devine, born 1952, Toronto, Canada. Lives in Toronto, Canada.
Godfried Donkor, born 1964, Accra, Ghana. Lives in London, UK and Accra, Ghana.
Marcel Duchamp, born 1887, Blainville-Crevon, France. D. 1968.
Edouard Duval-Carrié, born 1954, Port-au-Prince, Haïtï. Lives in Miami, FL, USA.
Torkwase Dyson, born 1973, Chicago, IL, USA. Lives in Beacon, NY, USA.
rana elnemr, born 1974, Hannover, Germany. Lives in Cairo, Egypt.
Theo Eshetu, born 1958, London, UK. Lives in Berlin, Germany and Rome, Italy.
Rachel Fallon (with Alice Maher), born 1971, Dublin, Ireland. Lives in Dublin, Ireland.
G.A.S. Foundation, founded 2023, Lagos and Ijebu Ode, Nigeria.
Sofía Gallisá Muriente, born 1986, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Lives in Puerto Rico.
Adebunmi Gbadebo, born 1992, Livingston, NJ, USA. Lives in Philadelphia, PA and Newark, NJ, USA.
Leonilda González, born 1923, Minuano, Uruguay. D. 2017.
Linda Goode Bryant, born 1949, Columbus, OH, USA. Lives in New York City, NY, USA.
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige
Born 1969, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives in Beirut, Lebanon and Paris, France.
Born 1969, Moussaitbeh, Lebanon. Lives in Beirut, Lebanon and Paris, France.
Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, born 1988, Toronto, Canada. Lives in Toronto, Canada; New York City, NY, USA; and Japan.
Ayrson Heráclito, born 1968, Macaúbas, Bahia, Brazil. Lives in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
Clarissa Herbst & Dominique Rust
Born 1959, Crailsheim, Germany. Lives in Zurich, Switzerland.
Born 1960, Basel, Switzerland. Lives in Zurich, Switzerland.
Nicholas Hlobo, born 1975, Cape Town, South Africa. Lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Carsten Höller, born 1961, Brussels, Belgium. Lives in Stockholm, Sweden; Biriwa, Ghana; and Tuscany, Italy.
Sohrab Hura, born 1981, Chinsurah, India. Lives in New Delhi, India.
Alfredo Jaar, born 1965, Santiago, Chile. Lives in Lisbon, Portugal.
Mohammed Joha, born 1978, Gaza, Palestine. Lives in Marseille, France.
Michael Joo, born 1966, Ithaca, NY, USA. Lives in New York City, NY, USA.
Nina Katchadourian, born 1968, Stanford, CA, USA. Lives in New York City, NY, USA and Berlin, Germany.
Bodys Isek Kingelez, born 1948, Kimbembele Ihunga, former Belgian Congo, now Democratic Republic of the Congo. D. 2015.
Sandra Knecht, born 1968, Buus, Switzerland. Lives in Buus, Switzerland.
Marcia Kure, born 1970, Kano State, Nigeria. Lives in Princeton, NJ, USA; Abuja, and Kaduna, Nigeria.
Natalia Lassalle-Morillo (in collaboration with Gloria Morillo), born 1991, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Florence Lazar, born 1966, Paris, France. Lives in Paris, France.
Dan Lie, born 1988. Lives in Berlin, Germany.
Werewere Liking, born 1950, Mgombas, Cameroon. Lives in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
lugar a dudas, founded 2004, Cali, Colombia.
Daniel Lind-Ramos, born 1953, Loiza, Puerto Rico. Lives in Loiza, Puerto Rico.
Alice Maher, born 1956, Tipperary, Ireland. Lives in County Mayo, Ireland.
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons & Kamaal Malak
Born 1959, Matanzas, Cuba Lives in Nashville, TN, USA.
Born 1962, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Lives in Nashville, TN, USA.
Senzeni Marasela, born 1977, Thokoza, South Africa. Lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Guadalupe Maravilla, born 1976, San Salvador, El Salvador. Lives in New York City, NY, USA.
Manuel Mathieu, born 1986, Port-au-Prince, Haïtï. Lives in Montreal, Canada and Paris, France.
Georgina Maxim, born 1980, Harare, Zimbabwe. Lives in Harare and Mutare, Zimbabwe.
Tiona Nekkia McClodden, born 1981, Blytheville, AR, USA. Lives in Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Big Chief Demond Melancon, born 1978, New Orleans, LA, USA. Lives in New Orleans, LA, USA.
Avi Mograbi, born 1956, Tel Aviv. Lives in Lisbon, Portugal.
Wangechi Mutu, born 1972, Nairobi, Kenya. Lives in New York City, NY, USA and Nairobi, Kenya.
Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI), founded 2020, Nairobi, Kenya.
Eustaquio Neves, born 1955, Juatuba, Brazil. Lives in Diamantina, Brazil.
Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, born 1976, Sài Gòn, Việt Nam. Lives in Hội An, works in Hồ Chí Minh City, Việt Nam.
Tammy Nguyen, born 1984, San Francisco, CA, USA. Lives in Easton, CT, USA.
Otobong Nkanga, born 1974, Kano, Nigeria. Lives in Antwerp, Belgium, and Uyo, Nigeria.
Kaloki Nyamai, born 1985, Nairobi, Kenya. Lives in Nairobi, Kenya.
Temitayo Ogunbiyi, born 1984, Rochester, NY, USA. Lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
Pauline Oliveros, born 1932, Houston, TX, USA. D. 2016.
Kambui Olujimi, born 1976, Brooklyn, New York City, NY, USA. Lives in New York City, NY, USA.
Hagar Ophir, born 1983, Jerusalem. Lives in Berlin, Germany.
Uriel Orlow, born 1973, Zurich, Switzerland. Lives in Lisbon, Portugal; London, UK; and Basel, Switzerland.
Ebony G. Patterson, born 1981, Kingston, Jamaica. Lives in Kingston, Jamaica and Chicago, IL, USA.
Rajni Perera & Marigold Santos
Born 1985, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Lives in Toronto, Canada.
Born 1981, Manila, Phillipines. Lives in Calgary, Canada.
Thania Petersen, born 1980, Cape Town, South Africa. Lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
Alan Phelan, born 1968, Dublin, Ireland. Lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Johannes Phokela, born 1966, Johannesburg, South Africa. Lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Léonard Pongo, born 1988, Liège, Belgium. Lives in Brussels, Belgium and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Walid Raad, born 1967, Chbanieh, Lebanon. Lives in Medusa, NY, USA.
Mohammed Z. Rahman, born 1997, London, UK. Lives in London, UK.
RAW Material Company, founded 2008, Dakar, Senegal.
Tabita Rezaire, born 1989, Paris, France, 1989. Lives in Cayenne, French Guiana.
Guadalupe Rosales, born 1980, Redwood City, CA, USA. Lives in Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Yo-E Ryou, born 1987, Seoul, South Korea. Lives in Seoul and Jeju Island, South Korea.
Khaled Sabsabi, born 1965, Tripoli, Lebanon. Lives in Sydney, Australia.
Rose Salane, born 1992, New York City, NY, USA. Lives in New York City, NY, USA.
Issa Samb, born 1945, Dakar, Senegal. D. 2017.
Amina Saoudi Aït Khay, born 1955, Casablanca, Morocco. Lives in Sousse, Tunisia.
Carrie Schneider, born 1979, Chicago, IL USA. Lives in New York City, NY, USA.
Hala Schoukair, born 1957, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives in Beirut, Lebanon.
Berni Searle, born 1964, Cape Town, South Africa. Lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
Mmakgabo Mmapula Helen Sebidi, born 1943, Marapyane, South Africa. Lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Wardha Shabbir, born 1987, Lahore, Pakistan. Lives in Lahore, Pakistan.
Yoshiko Shimada, born 1959, Tokyo, Japan. Lives in Chiba, Japan.
Himali Singh Soin & David Soin Tappeser
Born 1987, New Delhi, India. Lives in London, UK and New Delhi, India.
Born 1985, Bonn, Germany. Lives in London, UK and New Delhi, India.
Buhlebezwe Siwani, born 1987, Johannesburg, South Africa. Lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Cape Town, South Africa.
Cauleen Smith, born 1967, Riverside, CA, USA. Lives in Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Vera Tamari, born 1944, Jerusalem, Palestine. 1944. Lives in Ramallah, Palestine.
Tsai Ming-liang, born 1957, Kuching, Malaysia. Lives in New Taipei City and Taipei, Taiwan.
Victoria-Idongesit Udondian, born 1982, Uyo, Nigeria. Lives in Lagos, Nigeria and New York City, NY, USA.
Celia Vásquez Yui, born 1960, Pucallpa, Peru. Lives in the Peruvian Amazon, Pucallpa, Peru.
Kemang Wa Lehulere, born 1984, Cape Town, South Africa. Lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
Kennedy Yanko, born 1988, St. Louis, MO, USA. Lives in Miami, FL, USA.
Raed Yassin, born 1979, Beirut, Lebanon. Lives in Beirut, Lebanon and Berlin, Germany.
Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, born 1971, Shan State Burma. Lives in Zutphen, Netherlands and Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Billie Zangewa, born 1973, Blantyre, Malawi. Lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
APPLIED ARTS PAVILION
A Special Project of La Biennale di Venezia and Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Gala Porras-Kim, born 1984, Bogotá, Colombia. Lives in Los Angeles, CA, USA and London, UK.