Venice Biennale skews contemporary
Curator Koyo Kouoh’s main exhibition for the 2026 Venice Biennale — titled 'In Minor Keys' — will feature more than 90% living artists and emphasize mid‑career practitioners rather than retrospective blocks. (news.artnet.com) (nationaltoday.com)
The 2026 Venice Biennale’s main show is tilting hard toward the present, with a roster dominated by living artists rather than historical survey sections. (labiennale.org, news.artnet.com) La Biennale di Venezia said Koyo Kouoh’s “In Minor Keys” will include 111 participants and run from May 9 to November 22, 2026, with preview days on May 6, 7, and 8. Artnet’s analysis of the list found more than 90 percent of the artists are living. (labiennale.org, news.artnet.com) The same analysis found the lineup leans toward mid-career artists, with fewer retrospective-style inclusions of long-dead figures than in several recent editions. Organizers described the exhibition as a “visual and meditative procession” spread across the Giardini, the Arsenale, and other Venice sites. (news.artnet.com, labiennale.org) That marks a change in emphasis after recent biennales that often mixed contemporary work with stronger art-historical framing. Artnet said the 2026 list reads less like a revisionist history lesson and more like a snapshot of current practice across regions and generations. (news.artnet.com) The exhibition also carries unusual weight because Kouoh died in May 2025, before the show opened. La Biennale said it chose to carry out the exhibition with the support of her family in order to preserve and disseminate the project she pursued “to the very end.” (labiennale.org, artnews.com) When the artist list was released in February, organizers said the 111 participants included 99 individual artists, five duos, one collective, and six artist-led organizations. Observer reported that the curatorial team presented the group as a collective score shaped by Kouoh’s concept rather than a substitute vision assembled after her death. (observer.com, news.artnet.com) The official curatorial text frames “minor keys” as a slower, quieter register set against what Kouoh called the “cacophony” of the present. That language helps explain why the exhibition’s structure favors active practices and living voices over memorial blocks. (universes.art, labiennale.org) The result is a Venice Biennale that is being defined less by retrospection than by who is making work now — and by how faithfully Kouoh’s team can carry her last exhibition into May. (news.artnet.com, labiennale.org)
