THIRDSPACE rewrites performance history

THIRDSPACE Art Foundation is bringing a live performance program called *1922 Revisited* to the 2026 Venice Biennale preview in May. (finance.yahoo.com) The foundation said the program will run during the Biennale preview from May 5 to May 9, 2026, and art historian Dr. Janine A. Sytsma is curating it. (finance.yahoo.com) One of the announced works is Nigerian artist Jelili Atiku’s *Eyes No Dey Forget Wetin Heart See*, a live performance included in the lineup. THIRDSPACE said the program brings together artists from Africa and its diasporas. (manilatimes.net) The project looks back to a 1922 Venice Biennale exhibition in which African sculpture appeared inside a European display system rather than on its own terms. THIRDSPACE said that earlier presentation is often cited as an early Biennale showing of African art, but it also reproduced colonial ideas of “primitivism” and hierarchy. (manilatimes.net) That history matters inside this edition of the Biennale because the 61st International Art Exhibition opens to the public on May 9, 2026, after preview days on May 6, 7, and 8. La Biennale di Venezia says the exhibition, titled *In Minor Keys*, is being carried out with the support of curator Koyo Kouoh’s family. (labiennale.org) In practice, THIRDSPACE is using performance art — work made with bodies, movement, sound, and time — to revisit an archive that survives only in fragments. The foundation says the artists are meant to “intervene” in that record rather than simply illustrate it. (finance.yahoo.com) THIRDSPACE describes itself as a New York-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit, with its office at 285 Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan. Its website lists *1922 Revisited* as part of its current programming. (thirdspaceartfoundation.org) Atiku is known for politically charged performance work rooted in Lagos, where he has used live art, sculpture, photography, and video in projects tied to human rights and justice. His public materials describe performance as part of a broader multimedia practice rather than a separate discipline. (youtube.com) The Biennale’s official calendar sets the larger frame, but *1922 Revisited* is aimed at a narrower window when curators, critics, collectors, and press first converge on Venice. That gives the program its own stage before the main exhibition opens fully to the public. (labiennale.org)