Venice Biennale previewed
The 61st Venice Biennale opens to the public May 9 and runs through November 22 with around 111 artists, 99 national participations, and 31 collateral events mapped across the Giardini, the Arsenale, and other Venice sites ( ). Estonia’s pavilion will feature Merike Estna’s The House of Leaking Sky with the artist painting in public throughout the Biennale, and South African choreographer Mamela Nyamza just won the Silver Lion at the Biennale Danza — both signs the festival mix will cross visual art and performance ( ).
Venice is about to turn into a citywide art map again: the 61st Venice Biennale opens to the public on May 9, 2026, and runs until November 22 across the Giardini, the Arsenale, and other sites around the city. The main exhibition includes 111 invited participants, while another 99 countries mount their own national shows and 31 more projects run as official collateral events. (labiennale.org, labiennale.org) This year’s exhibition is called In Minor Keys, and it was conceived by curator Koyo Kouoh before her death in May 2025. La Biennale decided to carry out her exhibition as she had defined it, rather than replace the project with a new curatorial plan. (labiennale.org, biennialfoundation.org) The title is not about music theory as a classroom subject so much as mood and scale. In the curatorial text, Kouoh’s team says “minor keys” rejects spectacle and military swagger in favor of quieter tones, lower frequencies, poetry, improvisation, and close listening. (labiennale.org) That helps explain why the Biennale already looks less like one giant blockbuster show and more like a set of different tempos spread across Venice. The official structure itself pushes you to move between the central exhibition, the country pavilions, and independently organized collateral shows in churches, palaces, and other buildings outside the two main grounds. (labiennale.org, labiennale.org) One of the clearest examples is Estonia’s pavilion, where painter Merike Estna is turning painting into something visitors watch happen in real time. Her project, The House of Leaking Sky, is curated by Natalia Sielewicz, and Estna will keep painting in public view throughout the 2026 Biennale instead of treating the canvas as a finished object hung on a wall. (e-flux.com, cca.ee) The Estonian pavilion is also being built as a physical environment, not just a room for pictures. Estonian public broadcaster ERR reported that the pavilion will use 25,000 glazed floor tiles and a monumental painting assembled on site from 22 canvases. (news.err.ee) Performance is showing up elsewhere in the Biennale calendar too. South African choreographer Mamela Nyamza was awarded the 2026 Silver Lion for Dance, and La Biennale says she will appear in the dance festival that runs from July 17 to August 1 under director Wayne McGregor. (labiennale.org, labiennale.org) That matters for how to read the art exhibition now: Venice is not just a sequence of national rooms full of objects anymore. In 2026, the same institution is presenting an art exhibition shaped by Kouoh’s language of listening while also elevating live bodies, choreography, and on-site making in parallel programs. (labiennale.org, labiennale.org) The result is a Biennale where the headline numbers are huge, but many of the most revealing works may be the ones that unfold slowly. If Kouoh’s “minor keys” idea holds across the city, Venice this year may reward the people who stay in the room long enough to watch the painting change, the performer arrive, or the quieter show sink in. (labiennale.org, labiennale.org)
