The 61st Venice Biennale has begun announcing its lineup for the 2026 edition, which is scheduled to run from May 9 to November 22. While the main exhibition will follow a curatorial framework established by the late Koyo Kouoh, various nations have started naming the artists and curators who will represent them in the Giardini, the Arsenale, and satellite venues across the city.
Kader Attia has been announced as the curator of the 7th edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, scheduled for 2027–2028. The announcement was made by the Kochi Biennale Foundation via Instagram, with Attia selected by a committee chaired by Jitish Kallat and including Shilpa Gupta, Amrita Jhaveri, Pooja Sood, Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, Mariam Ram, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Attia, an artist, curator, and professor at HfbK-Hamburg, is known for his work exploring history, memory, repair, and colonial legacies across installation, sculpture, film, and archival research.
Andrew Durbin reviews national pavilions at a major biennial, contrasting a vacuous US presentation with incisive and moving installations from Britain and Germany. The review critiques the lack of meaningful content in the US pavilion while praising the depth and emotional resonance of the British and German contributions.
Equatorial Guinea makes its debut at the Venice Biennale with a national pavilion at Palazzo Donà dalle Rose, featuring Paraguayan artist Ingrid Seall and her work "Manar." The pavilion, titled "The Forest: The Undergrowth," runs from May 9 to November 22, 2026, and presents an immersive journey inspired by Equatorial Guinea's forests. Seall's piece uses materials like paper, cellulose, iron, and cassava paste to create a vertical, living organism that transforms waste into vital matter. The exhibition includes works by multiple international artists and is curated by Joan Abelló, with Brazilian commissioner Paulo Speller.