The 36th Bienal de São Paulo has opened with a site-specific installation by Nigerian-American artist Precious Okoyomon, titled "Sun of Consciousness. God Blow Thru Me – Love Break Me" (2025), which features a spiraling path of moss-covered earth and waterfalls evoking Brazil's deforested Cerrado region. The biennial, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung with an international team, includes 125 artists—97 international and 28 Brazilian—with more than half of the works commissioned for the exhibition. Notable presentations include a career-spanning display of over 20 paintings by British artist Frank Bowling, alongside works by Brazilian artist Gervane de Paula, who has the largest presence in the show.
This edition matters because it marks a significant moment for the Bienal de São Paulo, one of the world's most important contemporary art exhibitions, as it embraces a thoroughly international curatorial approach and centers on themes of humanity, migration, and ecological awareness. The biennial's theme, "Not All Travellers Walk Roads—Of Humanity as Practice," references Afro-Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo and explores existential and political dimensions of human connection. However, the exhibition's dense theoretical framing and sprawling thematic structure have drawn mixed reactions, with some critics noting that the lofty concepts sometimes overshadow the artworks themselves, raising questions about curatorial coherence in large-scale international biennials.