Venice Biennale 2026 Shifts Focus to Contemporary Mid-Career Artists Under Koyo Kouoh's Posthumous Curation

The 2026 Venice Biennale, titled "In Minor Keys" and curated posthumously by Koyo Kouoh, showcases 111 participants, comprising 99 individuals, five duos, one collective, and six artist-led organizations, with a focus on living creators—over 90% are currently alive. This stands in stark contrast to the 2024 edition, overseen by Adriano Pedrosa, where 64% of the artists were deceased, and the 2022 edition by Cecilia Alemani, which had 44% deceased artists. Kouoh achieves an equal representation of Western and Global South artists, including 20% from Africa, 17% from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 25% from North America. Featured artists include Nick Cave, Carsten Höller, and Kader Attia, with 66 artists born between 1950 and 1980, as Kouoh seeks to evoke subtle emotional frequencies through a more intimate scale of 111 artists.