Venice’s present turn
The 2026 Venice Biennale main exhibition — titled “In Minor Keys” — is skewing heavily toward living artists rather than historical figures. (news.artnet.com) Curator Koyo Kouoh’s selection reportedly includes more than 90% living artists and leans toward mid-career practitioners, signaling a generational and geographic shift in the 61st edition. (news.artnet.com)
The 2026 Venice Biennale’s main exhibition is leaning hard toward the present: more than 90 percent of its artists are living. (news.artnet.com) La Biennale di Venezia said “In Minor Keys,” the 61st International Art Exhibition, will run from May 9 to November 22, 2026, with previews on May 6, 7, and 8. The official list released in February names 111 participants, including 105 individual artists and six artist-led organizations. (labiennale.org; artsy.net) Artnet’s analysis of that list found 102 of the 111 participants are living artists, or about 92 percent. It also found the selection tilts toward mid-career artists rather than canonized historical figures. (news.artnet.com) That marks a break from the last two Venice editions. Artnet reported that Cecilia Alemani’s 2022 exhibition included 79 percent living artists, while Adriano Pedrosa’s 2024 edition landed at 77 percent. (news.artnet.com) The show is also arriving under unusual circumstances. Koyo Kouoh, the Cameroon-born curator who conceived “In Minor Keys,” died on May 10, 2025, and the Biennale said it would stage the exhibition in full accordance with her vision. (news.artnet.com; labiennale.org) Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco said in February that the exhibition “will honour and preserve” Kouoh’s ideas. The institution said her curatorial team — Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Hélène Pereira, Rasha Salti, Siddhartha Mitter, and Rory Tsapayi — is realizing the project she developed. (labiennale.org; artnews.com) The geographic mix is shifting too. Artnet reported that artists from Africa and the African diaspora account for about 36 percent of the lineup, up from 16 percent in 2024 and 4 percent in 2022. (news.artnet.com) Kouoh had framed the exhibition in quieter terms from the start. In the curatorial text published by the Biennale, “In Minor Keys” is described as an invitation to “shift to a slower gear” and attend to “frequencies of the minor keys.” (labiennale.org) The result is a Venice edition built less around posthumous rediscovery and more around artists still making work now. When the exhibition opens on May 9, the balance of living voices will be one of its clearest facts. (news.artnet.com; labiennale.org)
