The 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale will open in 2026 with the title In Minor Keys, a moniker chosen by the late Koyo Kouoh, and will proceed with the theoretical framework the curator formulated before her death.
Kouoh, who was appointed artistic director last year, died on 10 May, having recently been diagnosed with cancer.
A press conference to announce the exhibition title and theme opened with a video message from Kouoh, recorded following her appointment in November 2024.
A month prior to her death the Cameroonian curator had delivered a comprehensive plan for the show, naming her curatorial team, identifying artists and artworks for the show and appointing writers for the catalogue. The exhibition, she hoped, would be ‘neither a litany of commentary of world events nor an attempt to escape continuing and intersecting crisis.’
‘Artists are a channel to and between the minor keys; listening to, rather than speaking for them is at the core of the curatorial theme.’
Against a backdrop of images chosen by Kouoh, curatorial advisors Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helene Pereira and Rasha Salti, editor-in-chief Siddhartha Mitter and assistant Rory Tsapayi delivered an often-poetic schematic. First to the podium was Salti, a researcher and curator:
‘Take a deep breath, exhale, drop your shoulders and close your eyes. This is an invitation to encounter these words in the immediate physical, meteorological and karmic conditions in which they need you. To shift to a slower gear and tune into the frequencies of the minor keys, because, though often lost in the anxious cacophony of the present chaos raging through the world. The music continues. The song of those producing beauty in spite of tragedy. The tunes of the fugitives recovering from the ruins, the harmonies of those repairing wounds and words.
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 the moons, the blues, the call and response, the mourner, the second line, the lament, the allegory, the whisper, The Minor Keys refuse orchestral bombast and goose step military marches and come alive in quiet tones, the lower frequencies, the hums, constellation of poetry, all portents 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 Minor Keys are also small islands, worlds amid oceans with distinct and endlessly rich ecosystems, social lives that are articulated for better and worse within much larger political forms and ecological stakes. Here, the evocation of the key and the island extends to an archipelago of Oasis gardens, courtyards, compounds, lofts, dance floors and and the other words that artists make. The intimate and convivial universes that refresh and sustain even in terrible times, indeed, especially in terrible times.’
The full artist list will be announced on 25 February 2026.
