Venice Biennale opens May 9
The 61st Venice Biennale opens May 9 and runs through November 22 across the Giardini, the Arsenale and venues throughout Venice, organized under the title “In Minor Keys” and curated by Koyo Kouoh. Coverage notes a large scale — 111 artists and 99 national pavilions — so it’s shaping up as a major season for art travel ( ).
Venice turns into a six-month art city on Saturday, May 9, when the 61st International Art Exhibition opens across the Giardini, the Arsenale, and other sites around Venice, with previews on May 6, 7, and 8 and the closing set for November 22. (labiennale.org) This edition is carrying out a plan left by Koyo Kouoh, the Cameroon-born curator who was appointed in December 2024 and died on May 10, 2025, before the show could open. La Biennale says it chose to realize the exhibition as she conceived it, with the support of her family. (labiennale.org; labiennale.org) Kouoh’s title is “In Minor Keys,” and she framed it less like a blockbuster parade than a slower kind of listening exercise. In her curatorial text, she describes “minor keys” as the quieter frequencies that survive under political noise, war, and spectacle. (labiennale.org) That idea shapes the scale of the show rather than shrinking it. The central exhibition includes 111 invited participants, spanning solo artists, duos, collectives, and artist-led organizations from many regions. (labiennale.org) Around that core sits the Biennale’s other engine: the national pavilions. La Biennale says 99 national participations and 31 collateral events will run alongside the main exhibition, turning the city into a map of separate state-backed shows and independent side exhibitions. (labiennale.org) The geography matters because Venice does not work like a fair in one convention hall. The Giardini holds many long-established national pavilions, the Arsenale stretches through a former shipyard complex, and dozens of other projects spill into palazzos, churches, and rented spaces across the lagoon city. (labiennale.org) You can already see that machinery starting before the public opening. Bulgaria, for example, says its pavilion will open officially on May 7 at Tiziano Hall with a performance by artist Gery Georgieva for a project titled “The Federation of Minor Practices.” (bta.bg; nationalgallery.bg) What makes this Biennale different from a normal museum season is that one curator’s exhibition and nearly a hundred national presentations run at the same time in the same city. For visitors, that means the headline is not one show but a dense calendar of openings, awards, pavilion launches, and country-by-country statements packed into Venice from May through November. (labiennale.org; labiennale.org) So the opening on May 9 is really the start of a citywide rollout of Kouoh’s final exhibition at the exact moment Venice fills with curators, collectors, artists, museum directors, and national delegations. The result is a Biennale built on a quiet theme, but staged at one of the loudest and largest recurring gatherings in contemporary art. (labiennale.org; labiennale.org; labiennale.org)
