koyo kouoh to curate venice art biennale 2026

Koyo Kouoh is venice art biennale 2026’s curator

The Board of La Biennale di Venezia announces Koyo Kouoh as the curator of the Venice Art Biennale 2026, the 61st edition of the International Art Exhibition, succeeding the 2024 curator, Adriano Pedrosa. She has been the executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town since 2019, and before taking on the appointment, she was the founding artistic director of RAW Material Company, which is a center for art, knowledge, and society in Dakar, Senegal.

The Board met on November 5th, and the appointment of Koyo Kouoh as the Venice Art Biennale 2026 curator followed after the recommendation of President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco. He comments that by appointing Koyo Kouoh as the director of the Visual Arts Sector, the international art exhibition recognizes fresh beginnings. ‘Her perspective as a curator, scholar, and influential public figure meets with the most refined, young, and disruptive intelligences. With her here in Venice, La Biennale confirms what it has offered the world for over a century: to be the home of the future,’ the President says in a statement.

portrait of Koyo Kouoh | photo by Mirjam Kluka, courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

61st international art exhibition takes place in 2026

Venice Art Biennale 2026 is only one of the many exhibitions that Koyo Kouoh has curated. Before it, the Cameroonian-born curator brought Still (the) Barbarians, 37th EVA International, and the Ireland Biennial in Limerick in 2016 to life. She participated in the 57th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, with the exhibition project Dig Where You Stand (2018), where she drew from the collections of the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. She has also served as the curator of the educational and artistic program of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, UK, and New York, US, between 2013 and 2017.

Upon the appointment as the Venice Art Biennale 2026 curator, Koyo Kouoh says it’s a once-in-a-lifetime honor and privilege to take on the role as the artistic director of the international art exhibition. She considers it high regard to be able to compose an exhibition she hopes can carry meaning for the present world and ‘most importantly, for the world we want to make. I am deeply thankful to La Biennale’s Board and particularly its President, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, for entrusting me with this momentous mission, and I look forward to working with the entire team,’ the 2026 curator says. So far, the theme for the Venice Art Biennale 2026 is yet to be announced.

Koyo Kouoh is Venice Art Biennale 2026’s curator

US Pavilion by Jeffrey Gibson during Venice Art Biennale 2024 | photo by Timothy Schenck | read here

Creole Pavilion by Sol Calero during 2024 edition | image © Andrea Rossetti, courtesy the artist and ChertLüdde Berlin, Crèvecœur Paris, Francesca Minini Milan | read here

Holy See Pavilion during the 2024th edition | image courtesy of Holy See’s Dicastery for Culture and Education | read here

Ewa Juszkiewicz, Portrait in Venetian Red (after Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun), oil on canvas, 190 x 140 cm, 2024. Courtesy Ewa Juszkiewicz and Almine Rech | read here

project info:

name: Venice Art Biennale 2025 | @labiennale

curator: Koyo Kouoh | @madamekoyo

president: Pietrangelo Buttafuoco

portrait photography: Mirjam Kluka | @mirjamkluka