One curator’s ghost. A dozen controversies. And the question no one can quite stop asking: what is a national pavilion actually for?
The Exhibition That Almost Wasn’t
The 61st Venice Biennale opens on May 9 with a main exhibition, In Minor Keys, conceived by the late Koyo Kouoh — the first African woman ever appointed to lead the Biennale’s central show, who died unexpectedly in May 2025. She never saw it open.
Her team is now realizing the exhibition exactly as she designed it, building it around a framework that privileges quieter tonalities, intimacy, and what she called “poetic persistence” over spectacle and grand declaration.
The exhibition brings together 111 participants — individual artists, duos, collectives, and artist-led organizations — from cities including Dakar, Beirut, Paris, and Nashville. Kouoh selected them according to what she described as a “relational geography,” a network of affinities and resonances built over a lifetime.
Around that central exhibition, however, national pavilions are making considerably louder statements.
An Empty Room in the Arsenale
South Africa’s pavilion will stand empty for the first time in fifteen years — an absence that has already become one of the most discussed “works” of the Biennale.
Artist Gabrielle Goliath and curator Ingrid Masondo had planned to present a new iteration of Elegy, a long-running video-based performance addressing femicide, anti-LGBTQ+ violence, colonial atrocities in Namibia, and, in its Venice version, the death of Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada.
Culture minister Gayton McKenzie objected to the work, demanded changes, and threatened to withdraw funding. When Goliath refused, authorities canceled the pavilion. She challenged the decision in the South African High Court but lost.
Elegy will still appear in Venice — independently, at the Chiesa di Sant’Antonin — while the official pavilion in the Arsenale remains empty.
Australia: Canceled, Reinstated, Unprecedented
Australia’s path to Venice proved equally unstable. Authorities initially appointed Lebanese-Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, then removed them in February 2025 amid political controversy.
Following sustained backlash from the arts community, Creative Australia reversed the decision and reinstated Sabsabi. He will now appear both in the Australian pavilion and in Kouoh’s main exhibition — a rare dual presence.
The American Pavilion and the Question of Process
The U.S. State Department oversaw the American pavilion selection, replacing the National Endowment for the Arts and introducing new criteria focused on promoting “American values and policies.”
During a government shutdown, funding disputes derailed negotiations with artist Robert Lazzarini, and organizers ultimately dropped the project.
They later selected sculptor Alma Allen, whose exhibition Call Me the Breeze features stone and bronze works. Critics focused less on Allen’s work than on the selection process itself. Allen later revealed that both of his galleries advised him to withdraw and ended their relationships with him after he accepted.
Russia Returns, Israel Stays, and Two Hundred Artists Sign
Russia returns to Venice after its 2022 withdrawal, presenting an exhibition of more than fifty young cultural figures.
Israel also participates in the Arsenale, where Belu-Simion Fainaru presents Rose of Nothingness.
At the same time, nearly two hundred Biennale participants have signed an open letter calling for the exclusion of Israel, the United States, and Russia, citing ongoing violence in Gaza and the West Bank.
Expansion, Loss, and What Endures
Elsewhere, participation continues to expand. Twelve African nations will take part in 2026, several for the first time. Qatar has also established its first permanent pavilion in the Giardini — the first addition in thirty years.
Lubaina Himid will present new work in the British Pavilion. Germany’s pavilion moves forward under difficult circumstances: artist Henrike Naumann died suddenly in February 2026, and her team will now realize the project she had planned.
The Biennale’s structure has never allowed it to bar nations directly; participating countries retain that authority. In 2026, that structure has become a stage for political decisions as much as artistic ones.
Kouoh’s exhibition responds with a quieter proposition — that the most important work may not be the loudest. Whether audiences can hold both realities at once remains an open question.
Sources: Artsy / ArtReview / Artnet News
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