VENICE ART BIENNALE 2026

IN MINOR KEYS 
While major scales normally evoke the joyful, the bright, and the hopeful, minor keys are used to create a more subdued, intimate music that touches your heart deeply.
This doesn’t mean that minor keys are exclusively sad or somber; they can also arise feelings of calm, mystery, suspense, and even of enthusiasm, consolation, and optimism.

Koyo Kouoh, the person behind this musical metaphor, first African woman ever to be appointed as curator of the Venice Art Biennale, unfortunately passed away in May 2025, just few days before the official presentation of the 61st edition. After her sudden and premature death, the decision was to maintain her curatorial program in its integrity.

A few fundamental quotes from Kouoh curatorial text:
“There is a reason, after all, that some people wish to colonize the moon,
and others dance before it as an ancient friend.”

— James Baldwin, 1972

“The minor key, in music, alludes both to the structure of a song and to its emotional effects. It is a rich idea, so rich that it quickly overflows its technical definition and spills with metaphor. It summons moods, the blues, the call-and-response, the morna, the second line, the lament, the allegory, the whisper.”

“The minor keys refuse orchestral bombast and goose-step military marches and come alive in the quiet tones, the lower frequencies, the hums, the consolations of poetry, all portals of improvisation to the elsewhere and the otherwise. The minor keys ask for listening that calls on the emotions and sustains them in return.”

“The exhibition In Minor Keys stands as a collective score composed together with artists who have built universes of imagination. Artists who work at the boundaries of form, and whose practices can be thought of as intricate melodies to be heard both collectively and on their own terms.”

Kouoh, born in 1967, was a Cameroonian Swiss art expert and promoter. From 2019 she served as Head Curator at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town. She inherited a museum in a totalstate of  crisis from her predecessor, and used all her energy and expertise to transform it into an extraordinarly successful and lively venue.

She was described by the N.Y. Times as “one of Africa’s pre-eminent art curators and managers”.

Art Review considered her one of the 100 most influential people in the world of contemporary art.

Main interests: African art, empowering artists, with special attention to women artists.

Kouoh’s entourage, starring five professional figures she personally selected to collaborate with her on her curatorial effort, is now in charge of carrying on the exhibition: Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helene Pereira, Rasha Salti, Siddhartha Mitter, and Rory Tsapayi.

Keep an eye on this link to have an updated panorama of what’s going on in each pavilion, the situation is still in evolution:https://news.artnet.com/art-world/venice-biennale-2026-national-pavilions-2604196

For the first time in 30 years there will be a newly built pavilion in the Giardini, designed for Qatar by the Lebanese architect Lina Ghotneh.

VENICE ART BIENNALE 2026 – PRACTICAL INFOS

The 61st Venice Biennale will open on May 9th, 2026. Until November 22nd, 2026.

Closing day: Monday.

We strongly advise booking your private guided tour well in advance.

An informal discussion on what you just saw might enrich your lunch break: our guide will be happy to organize a gourmet break in a nearby trattoria, where there will be some time for a first evaluation.

On request, we can also provide private guides to the other national pavilions outside the main venues.
Should you want to select some more private modern art tours with us please visit our dedicated section.