How the Biennale Works, Who Decides What Becomes Visible, and Why This Edition Is Politically Charged
The Venice Biennale can feel like a closed system. Pavilions, curators, the Giardini, the Arsenale, collateral events, national representation, juries, prizes, protests: at first glance, it can seem like a structure designed mainly for people who already know the codes.
But once you understand that structure, something far more interesting than a series of exhibitions becomes visible. The Biennale is a temporary model of the world. A place where art, power, history, diplomacy and representation come together. Not as abstract concepts, but through buildings, flags, bodies, materials, choices and absences.
The Venice Biennale Arte 2026 is the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia and runs from 9 May to 22 November 2026 in the Giardini, the Arsenale and various locations across Venice. Its title is In Minor Keys, a concept by curator Koyo Kouoh. Her proposal had already been submitted before her death; the Biennale decided to carry out her vision with the team she had selected.
What Is the Biennale, Actually?
The Biennale is not a regular exhibition. It functions more like a world map of art, power and visibility.
There are three main layers.
The first layer is the central exhibition. This is curated by the main curator of the Biennale. In 2026, the exhibition follows Koyo Kouoh’s project In Minor Keys.
The second layer consists of the national pavilions. Countries choose their own artist or artists, often with their own curator. The Netherlands chooses the Dutch Pavilion. France chooses the French Pavilion. Brazil chooses the Brazilian Pavilion. Some countries have permanent buildings in the Giardini; others present in the Arsenale or in locations spread throughout the city.
The third layer consists of collateral events and independent exhibitions. Around the official programme, a broad outer ring of presentations emerges. Some are officially recognised by the Biennale; others simply make use of the fact that the international art world gathers in Venice at that moment.
So you are not visiting one exhibition. You are moving through a city in which every space can temporarily take a position.
Who Is the Curator — and Why Does That Matter?
Koyo Kouoh was a Swiss-Cameroonian curator and one of the major voices in contemporary art. She was the director of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town and the founder of RAW Material Company in Dakar. Her appointment was historic: she became the first African woman to curate the Venice Art Biennale.
That is not merely a biographical detail. It changes the perspective from which the exhibition speaks.
A Biennale curator does not only choose artists. A curator also determines the worldview, sensitivity and intellectual direction of the exhibition. The title In Minor Keys does not suggest a grand, triumphant narrative of power. It points instead to another way of listening: to voices that have rarely been allowed to carry the main melody.
Not the dominant version of history, but the undertones.
Not only the official story, but also what continued to sound beneath it.
Not only who was visible, but also who helped shape the rhythm of history without being recognised.
This Biennale therefore does not only ask: who makes art?
It also asks: who has been given the right to set the tone?
Why Do Countries Choose Their Own Artists?
The national pavilions are one of the oldest, most charged and at the same time most fascinating parts of the Biennale. Each country presents itself through art. That sounds cultural, but it is also diplomatic.
A country is essentially saying:
this is the artist through whom we want to be internationally visible right now.
There is tension in that. Who makes that choice? A ministry? A museum? A committee? A curator? And on whose behalf does the artist then speak?
An artist can represent a country, but also criticise it. A pavilion can show pride, but also doubt. It can confirm a national narrative, or break it open. That is why a pavilion is never merely an exhibition space. It is also a place where identity, history, power and contradiction come together.
Where Does the Tension Arise?
Precisely in the collision between the central exhibition and the national pavilions.
The main curator develops one overarching vision. In 2026, that vision is In Minor Keys: an exhibition that listens to undertones, to non-dominant voices, to histories often placed outside the centre.
But the national pavilions follow their own cultural and political logic. This always creates friction.
A country may choose a safe artist.
Or a radical voice.
A country may present diversity.
Or use diversity as a façade.
An artist may speak on behalf of a nation.
Or call the very idea of that nation into question
The Biennale is therefore not a neutral art fair. It is a place where art, power, identity and geopolitics visibly come into conflict.
The Protests: When Culture Can No Longer Pretend to Be Neutral
The opening of the 2026 Biennale was strongly affected by protests surrounding the participation of Israel and Russia. On 8 May 2026, during the opening week and just before the public opening, the group Art Not Genocide Alliance organised a strike against Israel’s participation. According to The Guardian, around a dozen pavilions closed temporarily or partially; The Art Newspaper reported that more than fifteen pavilions temporarily or partly closed.
Some artists also added references to Palestine to their work. With this, the question shifted from aesthetics to legitimacy.
Can an art institution remain neutral when countries are involved in war, occupation or human rights violations?
For critics, the answer is no. They argue that participation in the Biennale is more than mere presence. It means international visibility. Cultural recognition. A flag inside an authoritative institution.
Others defend the Biennale as a space for dialogue, even when states are politically controversial.
But the word “dialogue” becomes problematic when not everyone speaks under equal conditions. Who gets a pavilion? Who gets a flag? Who receives protection, funding and visibility? And who is mainly turned into a subject of debate, without truly being heard?
Why Russia Is Also So Charged
Russia’s presence also made this edition politically tense, because of the ongoing war in Ukraine. During the preview days, a protest action by Pussy Riot and other activists led to the temporary closure of the Russian Pavilion. The action was directed against the normalisation of Russian cultural presence in Europe while the war continues.
The criticism surrounding both Russian and Israeli participation makes clear how fragile the idea of a “neutral” cultural platform has become.
The Biennale is used to controversy. But in 2026, questions of war, state power, legitimacy and cultural representation are not outside the exhibition. They are at its centre.
Why This Edition Matters Now
The 2026 Biennale is not only about artworks, countries and pavilions. It is about who is made visible today, and who is once again pushed to the margins.
In a time of war, migration, ecological crisis, technological acceleration and cultural polarisation, art becomes more than presentation. Art becomes a way of listening to what official systems often cannot or will not hear: ancestral knowledge, land as memory, care as power, material as a carrier of history, and resistance that does not always need to be loud in order to be meaningful.
That is why In Minor Keys feels urgent. The title asks for attention to undertones: voices that have not always carried the main melody, but have shaped histories, bodies, landscapes and futures.
This edition invites us to look differently. Not only at who is exhibiting, but at what is being restored. Not only at national pride, but at national blind spots. Not only at art as object, but at art as memory, relation and responsibility.
In this way, the Biennale becomes a place where aesthetics and current affairs touch one another. Not as decoration for the world, but as a method for reading it again.
How Can You Approach This Biennale?
Not as a visitor trying to tick off everything. That mainly produces exhaustion and superficiality.
Approach it as a researcher, a listener and a witness.
Ask at every pavilion:
Who is speaking here?
On whose behalf?
Who is missing?
Is the land a background, a subject, or a wound?
Is material used as beauty, or as memory?
Is care presented as weakness, or as strength?
Is the resistance loud, or almost invisible?
Then the Biennale is no longer an incomprehensible system, but a readable map of our time.
The Venice Biennale 2026 in One Sentence
The Venice Biennale 2026 is a world exhibition in which one curatorial vision — Koyo Kouoh’s In Minor Keys — collides, blends and resonates with dozens of national pavilions, while wars, strikes and protests make clear that art never stands outside the world.
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