Performance program '1922 Revisited'

Third Space Art Foundation plans to stage “1922 Revisited” in Venice from May 5 to 9, 2026, during Biennale preview week. The program is curated by art historian Dr. Janine A. Sytsma and brings together artists from Africa and its diasporas, including Jelili Atiku, Tsedaye Makonnen, Zora Snake, ruby onyinyechi amanze, and Bernard Akoi-Jackson. Its starting point is a 1922 Venice Biennale exhibition of African art, which the organizers say placed African sculpture inside a European display system that elevated some objects as “art” while preserving colonial hierarchies. That intervention lands during the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, titled *In Minor Keys*, which opens to the public on May 9, 2026 after preview days on May 6, 7, and 8. La Biennale says the 2026 exhibition will proceed with the project conceived by Koyo Kouoh, who died in May 2025 after developing the show’s framework, artist list, catalogue authors, and exhibition design. Sytsma said the performance program is meant to work in dialogue with Kouoh’s vision by “opening up space” for repair, while shifting attention to artists and histories that were marginalized in earlier Biennale narratives. Third Space Art Foundation is presenting the project with the African Art in Venice Forum and the European Cultural Centre, alongside research, programming, and documentation partners. The organizers also plan a companion book, *Harmonies of Repair: Revisiting the 1922 Exhibition of African Art Through Performance at the Venice Biennale*, for spring 2027. For now, the immediate test is Venice preview week: whether live performance can reshape how one of the art world’s biggest stages remembers its own archive.