Venice Biennale Announces 111 Artists for 2026 Edition
The art world is gearing up for the 61st edition, curated by the late Koyo Kouoh.
Summary
- The Venice Biennale has unveiled the full roster of featured names for its 61st edition in May
- The highly anticipated In Minor Keys exhibition arrives a year after the death of its curator, Koyo Kouoh
- Participants include solo artists, collectives, collaborative duos and artist-run organizations
The Venice Biennale returns this May, and in the lead-up to its 61st edition, the international art expo has announced the full list of artists participating in its main exhibition.
Titled In Minor Keys, the 2026 showcase realizes the vision of the late curator Koyo Kouoh, and will be carried out by a group of advisors she appointed prior to her passing last May. The team includes advisors Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helen Pereira, Rasha Salti, her assistant Rory Tsapayi and critic Siddhartha Mitter. There will be no Golden Lion lifetime achievement award this year, as Kouoh had not yet made her selections.
Among the 111 names set to present works are individual artists, collaborative duos, collectives and artist-led organizations. Although significantly smaller than Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere in 2024, which included 331 participants, In Minor Keys places greater emphasis geographic breadth, with a strong focus on artists from the Global South and a sharp increase in living artists.
The announcement also comes on the heels of South Africa’s now-emptied Pavilion, followed by the reinstatement of Khaled Sabsabi, whose Australian Pavilion presentation had previously been axed.
The show will be organized around motifs including “Shrines,” “Procession,” “Schools,” “Rest,” and “Performances,” and will explore subtle emotional registers and the poetic frequencies of artistic practice, drawing connections to music and verse, the curatorial team described in a press conference earlier today. Visitors can expect works from some of our favorites, including Kennedy Yanko, Pauline Oliveros, Nick Cave, Ebony G. Patterson, Alvaro Barrington and Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn.
“The exhibition In Minor Keys stands as a collective score composed together with artists who have built universes of imagination. Artists who work at the boundaries of form, and whose practices can be thought of as intricate melodies to be heard both collectively and on their own terms. These are artists whose practices seamlessly bleed into society,” Kouoh wrote in a curatorial statement.
“Artists who accommodate daily life as part of a logical and aesthetically consistent relation of parts. Artists who are exceedingly generous and hospitable to life.”
The exhibition will commence on May 9, running through November 22. Check out the Venice Biennale’s website for the full list of participating artists.
