Faig Ahmed opens seven-room Venice pavilion

Faig Ahmed’s Venice Biennale project is built as a sequence rather than a single object. COVER reported on July 9 that the Azerbaijan Pavilion unfolds across seven rooms, starting with a melting-carpet installation and moving visitors through site-specific works and sound elements. (cover-magazine.com) Ahmed, the Baku-based artist known for distorting traditional carpet forms, is representing Azerbaijan at the 61st International Art Exhibition with a solo presentation titled “The Attention.” (cover-magazine.com) The exhibition opened in Venice on May 9 and runs through November 11, according to COVER and the Azerbaijan pavilion’s materials. The show is curated by Gwendolyn Collaço and installed at Campo de la Tana in the Castello district. (cover-magazine.com) ### What do visitors encounter first inside the pavilion? COVER said the first work visitors meet is “Can Contain Both Worlds But Do Not Fit Into This One” (2026), a carpet piece that appears to melt and spill through the entrance space. The publication said the work gives the pavilion its opening image and sets the route through the rest of the installation. (cover-magazine.com) The July 9 review said the title refers to a poem by Nasimi. Another account of the pavilion described the related large-scale textile as a “breathing body” that climbs the architecture, knots itself, collapses and spills. (cover-magazine.com) ### Why is the show arranged as seven rooms? COVER’s review described the pavilion as a seven-room journey, with each space extending Ahmed’s use of carpet into a physical pathway. The publication said the sequence carries visitors from the entrance work into additional site-specific pieces and sound-based elements. (cover-magazine.com) Collaço wrote, as quoted by COVER, that Ahmed uses his carpet sculptures as the “shared framework and physical path” for a larger journey through the exhibition. In an earlier COVER preview, the magazine said the pavilion reimagines the carpet as a system through which craft, language and cosmology meet. (cover-magazine.com) ### Which other works shape the route through the pavilion? COVER identified one later work as “Face It,” describing it as a giant folded mass of weaving that blocks the path. The same review said the installation changes form as visitors continue through the pavilion, turning the carpet from floor-bound object into an obstacle and sculptural structure. (cover-magazine.com) Other reporting on the exhibition said Ahmed’s carpets undulate, scrunch, distend and pool across the rooms. Colossal also highlighted “Garden of Awakening” (2026) as part of the installation’s sound component. (cover-magazine.com) ### How does this fit Ahmed’s broader practice? Ahmed was selected to represent Azerbaijan with newly commissioned works that examine perception and systems of meaning through textile, sound and technology-based elements, according to Canvas and the pavilion site. Those materials describe carpets as the central element of his practice, combining traditional weaving references with digital processes and data-driven systems. (cover-magazine.com) ArtAsiaPacific and the pavilion materials said Collaço is the curator of the solo presentation. Ahmed previously represented Azerbaijan in a group exhibition at the country’s inaugural Biennale pavilion in 2007, according to an Artforum item reproduced on the pavilion website. (thisiscolossal.com) ### Where and when can people see it next? “The Attention” is on view at Azerbaijan’s pavilion at Campo de la Tana in Venice through November 11, according to the pavilion website and COVER’s preview. COVER’s July 9 review offers the latest published walkthrough of the seven-room installation, including the opening work and the sequence of later pieces. (cover-magazine.com) (artasiapacific.com) (canvasonline.com)