The 2026 Venice Biennale’s main exhibition, “In Minor Keys,” will include 111 artists, the organizers announced today. The exhibition, curated by the late Koyo Kouoh, will go on as planned following the curator’s untimely death from cancer at the age of 57 in May of last year. The biennale will run from May 9th through November 22nd, with pre-openings on May 6th, 7th, and 8th. The awards ceremony will be held on May 9th.
Among the 111 artists included, 105 are individual artists and 6 are artist-led organizations. This is far fewer than the 330 artists that were included in the 2024 Venice Biennale, which was curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Notably, there is a broad geographical focus among this year’s participating artists, many of whom hail from the Global South. There is also a strong uptick in living artists (both the 2024 and 2022 editions included many artists who were deceased).
The oldest living artist who will show in the exhibition, Mmakgabo Mmapula Helen Sebidi, was born in 1943, while the youngest, Mohammed Z. Rahman, was born in 1997. Other artists invited to exhibit in the show include Otobong Nkanga, Torkwase Dyson, Wangechi Mutu, Alvaro Barrington, and Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn. Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi, who will be presenting work at the Australian pavilion following a turbulent selection process, is also included in the main show.
Following Kouoh’s death, the Biennale confirmed that the curator had already begun selecting artists, considering commissions, and building out programming. She had also devised the main theme for the show. However, there will be no Golden Lion lifetime achievement awards presented at this year’s Biennale, as Kouoh did not have time to select them. As previously reported, the curator’s plans for the exhibition will be realized by her team, including advisors Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Hélène Pereira and Rasha Salti, Siddhartha Mitter, and research assistant Rory Tsapayi.
“The pages of In Minor Keys, which Koyo sent to La Biennale almost a year ago, offer a striking insight into her curatorial practice and spell out a crystal-clear notion of her own concept of an exhibition,” said Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco in a statement. “It is an exhibition permeated with spirit, with a sacredness that puts the person, the human being, back at the heart of things, rediscovering the sense of being in the world by reacquiring a sense of proportion with respect to all earthly elements, and by looking to the sky once more.”
The show will be organized around motifs including “Shrines,” “Procession,” “Schools,” “Rest,” and “Performances”. “Shrines” in the Sala Chini, for instance, will be presented as a dual tribute to artist and poet Issa Samb and Beverly Buchanan, who worked across painting, sculpture, video, and land art.
The works under the “Procession” motif, meanwhile, draw inspiration from the act of engaging with a crowd rather than simply observing, like at carnival festivities or Afro-Atlantic gatherings. These include works by Big Chief Demond Melancon, Nick Cave, and Ebony G. Patterson (who was featured in the Artsy Vanguard 2019).
Elsewhere, Kouoh devised the “Schools” theme to give space to art institutions that have been pivotal in shaping artists,. “Rest” will present works by Linda Goode Bryant, Kennedy Yanko, and Annalee Davis to provide moments of contemplation and pause through multisensory installations and spaces. In addition, a program of performances, including one inspired by Kouoh’s 1999 performance Poetry Caravan, will take place in the Giardini.
The full list of artists participating in the 2026 Venice Biennale main exhibition can be found here.
