Venice Biennale 2026 Will Realize Koyo Kouoh’s Vision After Her Death
Koyo Kouoh had spent nearly seven months preparing the art event’s main exhibition before she died this month. Her team will complete the work and open the show in May 2026.The organizers of the Venice Biennale announced on Tuesday that next year’s edition would go ahead as planned, despite the sudden death this month of Koyo Kouoh, the curator who was overseeing its main exhibition.Kouoh died of cancer on May 10, just days before she was scheduled to reveal the title and theme of the event.Cristiana Costanzo, a Biennale spokeswoman, told reporters at a news conference in Venice that next year’s edition would run from May 9 through Nov. 22, and that a team of curators, art historians and editors who had been working with Kouoh would deliver her exhibition “as she conceived and defined it.”Kouoh had been preparing the exhibition for almost seven months, Costanzo said: Working with a five-member team, she had selected some of the participating artists and artworks, and given it a title, “In Minor Keys.”During Tuesday’s news conference, members of the team used Kouoh’s words to present her plan.Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, an art historian from the team, said that Kouoh had wanted her Biennale to be “neither a litany of commentary on world events, nor an inattention or escape from compounding and continuously intersecting crises.” Instead, Beckhurst Feijoo said, Kouoh had wanted to present “a radical reconnection with art’s natural habitat and role in society — that is the emotional, the visual, the sensory, the affective, the subjective.”The central pavilion of the Venice Biennale, which usually hosts part of the main exhibition.Matteo de Mayda for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More