Venice Biennale set dates and scale
The 61st Venice Biennale, titled “In Minor Keys” and curated by Koyo Kouoh, opens to the public May 9 and runs through November 22, with reports citing about 111 artists, 99 national pavilions, and 31 collateral events — so plan for a packed schedule. ( )
If you are planning a Venice trip around art, the calendar just snapped into focus: the 61st Venice Biennale opens to the public on Saturday, May 9, 2026, and runs until Sunday, November 22, 2026, with preview days on May 6, 7, and 8. The awards ceremony and inauguration are set for May 9, which means the city starts filling with openings before the public weekend begins. (labiennale.org) This edition is called “In Minor Keys,” and it was conceived by Koyo Kouoh, the curator La Biennale appointed in November 2024 to lead the 2026 exhibition. The official site says the exhibition is being carried out with the full support of Kouoh’s family after her passing, so the show arrives with the weight of being both a major international survey and the realization of her final Biennale project. (labiennale.org; labiennale.org) The scale is the part most visitors underestimate. La Biennale says the central exhibition alone includes 111 invited participants, a mix of individual artists, duos, collectives, and artist-led organizations from many regions. (labiennale.org) That central exhibition is only one layer of the event. On top of it, La Biennale has confirmed 99 national participations and 31 collateral events, which is why the Biennale works less like a single museum show and more like a temporary citywide art map. (labiennale.org) The national participations are the country pavilions people usually mean when they say they are “doing the Biennale.” Some sit in the historic Giardini gardens, others are spread through the Arsenale and rented spaces across Venice, so seeing “the Biennale” often means crossing neighborhoods, canals, and church courtyards rather than walking one building. (labiennale.org; labiennale.org) The collateral events are a different category again. La Biennale describes them as officially recognized shows organized outside the main institutional venues of the Giardini and the Arsenale, which makes them the art-world version of an official fringe festival attached to the main event. (labiennale.org) The practical consequence is that opening week starts before May 9. Bulgaria’s pavilion, for example, has announced an official opening on May 7 at Tiziano Hall with a performance by Gery Georgieva, exactly the kind of preview-week scheduling that turns the first week into a dense chain of national launches. (bta.bg) Even the daily timetable shows how much ground visitors are expected to cover. The 2026 information page lists summer hours of 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday late hours at the Arsenale until 8 p.m. through the end of September, and Monday closures with four exceptions on May 11, June 1, September 7, and November 16. (labiennale.org) So the headline is not just that dates are set. It is that Venice now has a six-and-a-half-month exhibition window, nearly 100 national pavilions, more than 100 invited participants, and 31 extra official events, which means anyone trying to “see it all” will be planning routes, not just buying tickets. (labiennale.org; labiennale.org; labiennale.org)
