Dries Verhoeven transforms Dutch Pavilion into bunker for Venice Biennale

Artist Dries Verhoeven has covered the Gerrit Rietveld-designed Dutch Pavilion in the Giardini with metal shutters, turning it into a bunker-like space for the 2026 Venice Biennale. The pavilion, opened in 1953 and emblematic of modernist openness, now hosts hourly performances for about 100 visitors, featuring 13 rotating performers who create raw vocal works. Verhoeven, born in Oosterhout and trained at the Maastricht Institute of Arts, aims to capture desperation and confusion in response to global militarization and political tensions. He criticizes the Biennale's façade of neutrality, citing the genocide in Gaza and the presence of the Israeli pavilion as sore spots. The work, titled in relation to the main exhibition theme 'In Minor Keys,' rejects utopian spaces, instead embracing melancholy. Verhoeven supports potential protests that might disrupt or shorten the Biennale, comparing Israel's participation to South Africa's exclusion after ten years of protest. The pavilion is open Wednesday to Sunday; on Tuesdays it remains closed as a sculpture.