Venice tilts to living artists
This year’s Venice Biennale main exhibition overwhelmingly features living artists and leans toward mid‑career practice rather than historical retrospectives. A data analysis finds more than 90% of the main‑exhibition artists are living and the show shows a broader geographic mix than some past editions (news.artnet.com).
The 2026 Venice Biennale’s main show is built around artists who are alive now, with 111 invited participants and more than 90 percent of them living. (labiennale.org) (news.artnet.com) La Biennale di Venezia published the artist list on February 25, and the exhibition, titled *In Minor Keys*, runs from May 9 to November 22, 2026. The roster includes individual artists, duos, collectives, and six artist-led organizations. (labiennale.org) (news.artnet.com) Artnet’s analysis says the show leans toward mid-career practice rather than dead artists or large historical recoveries. Its count found a broader geographic spread than some recent editions, with artists drawn from cities including Salvador, Dakar, San Juan, Beirut, Paris, and Nashville. (news.artnet.com) (labiennale.org) That marks a change in emphasis from the last two Venice editions, which used the main exhibition to rewrite art history by foregrounding overlooked figures from earlier generations. The 2024 Biennale, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, named 331 artists for *Foreigners Everywhere*, far more than the 111 in this year’s central show. (news.artnet.com) (labiennale.org) (artnews.com) The 2026 exhibition is also unusual because its curator, Koyo Kouoh, died in May 2025 at 57, before the show opened. La Biennale said the exhibition is being realized according to her plan by advisers Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helene Pereira, Rasha Salti, editor Siddhartha Mitter, and assistant Rory Tsapayi. (labiennale.org) (artnews.com) Kouoh framed *In Minor Keys* as a quieter exhibition, centered on “lower frequencies,” poetry, and listening rather than spectacle. Her team said the show is organized through motifs including “shrines,” “rest,” “procession,” and “schools.” (artnews.com) (news.artnet.com) The six artist-led organizations make that structure visible. Artnet reported that they include Raw Material Company in Dakar, GAS Foundation in Lagos, Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute, and Denniston Hill in New York’s Catskills, which Kouoh linked to the exhibition’s “schools” motif. (news.artnet.com) The list still includes some deceased artists, but they are exceptions rather than the spine of the exhibition. Artnet said the two most prominent historical presentations are “shrines” for Issa Samb, who died in 2017, and Beverly Buchanan, who died in 2015. (news.artnet.com) (labiennale.org) The result is a Venice main exhibition that looks less like a survey of art history and more like a map of current practice across regions. When *In Minor Keys* opens on May 9, the balance of living artists will be one of the clearest signals of how this edition wants to be read. (news.artnet.com) (labiennale.org)
