The 2026 Venice Biennale, one of the art world's most anticipated events, is unfolding amid significant challenges both within and beyond its exhibitions. This year’s central show, titled "In Minor Keys," features work from 110 artists and groups, alongside national pavilions representing 96 countries. However, the event has been overshadowed by controversy and disruption, reflecting broader geopolitical tensions.
The Biennale’s curator, Koyo Kouoh, passed away from cancer in 2025, just a year before the exhibition opened. Kouoh, notable as the first Black woman to have curated the international exhibition at Venice, had completed the concept and written the introductory text but did not live to see the final installation. Her team carried out the project posthumously, resulting in an exhibition marked by both ambition and unevenness, with some critics suggesting that the scope was not narrowed despite her absence.
The main exhibition features a diverse array of works, including striking pieces by Puerto Rican artist Daniel Lind-Ramos, whose half-human sculptures crafted from found materials evoke both humor and unease, and Peruvian artist Celia Vásquez Yui’s ceramic spirit animals. A seven-panel painting by Cuban-American artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons occupies a prominent place near the back of the central hall, serving as a tribute to both Toni Morrison, the Nobel Prize-winning author, and Kouoh herself.
Yet the exhibition’s overall atmosphere has been described as cacophonous rather than serene, with side areas dedicated to figures such as Marcel Duchamp and the late American artist Beverly Buchanan, whose drawings and small architectural models address themes of Black ownership in the southern United States. The exhibition’s stated focus on gentle resonances often contrasts with the intensity of the display.
Beyond artistic considerations, the Biennale has grappled with the political aspects of its longstanding structure. The event is traditionally organized around national pavilions, a system increasingly criticized for its colonial legacy. This year’s controversies center on the Russian and Israeli pavilions. The Russian pavilion, which was closed in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and lent to Bolivia in 2024, reopened only for preview week in 2026, prompting protests. Similarly, the Israeli pavilion has been the focal point of ongoing demonstrations. The Biennale administration has made limited efforts to control protests during the preview period, allowing picketers and activists to express their dissent without intervention.
Other countries have taken political stands through their pavilion presentations. For example, the Netherlands has actively engaged with issues of migration and colonial history. In the Giardini, Dutch artist Dries Verhoeven’s installation confines visitors inside a shuttered pavilion, symbolizing contemporary European attitudes toward migrants. This follows the 2024 Biennale, when the Netherlands lent its pavilion to a collective of plantation workers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In terms of artistic highlights, the Austrian pavilion has attracted considerable attention for Florentina Holzinger’s "Seaworld Venice," an ecological action-performance involving naked dancers interacting with water tanks mimicking urban filtration systems. The provocative and challenging nature of this work, alongside a public display of a performer hanging upside down inside a giant bell, underscores the Biennale’s complex blend of spectacle and activism.
As the 2026 Venice Biennale proceeds, the intersection of art, politics, and the legacy of its recently deceased curator shapes an exhibition that is both a testament to ambition and a reflection of global uncertainties.