From 9 May to 22 November 2026, Venice once again becomes the world capital of contemporary art. The 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, titled In Minor Keys, invites visitors from around the world into the evocative spaces of the Giardini, the Arsenale, and numerous venues spread throughout the historic lagoon city.

We also suggest our future guests to have a look at the special Biennale Arte Package.

A Title, a Story

The curatorial project bears the signature of Koyo Kouoh, Cameroonian critic and curator, former director of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, and the first African curator in the history of the Biennale Arte. Kouoh passed away prematurely in May 2025, before seeing her vision come to life. Her project, fully developed prior to her passing, has been carried forward in her honour.

In Minor Keys invites us to re-tune ourselves to the “minor keys” of contemporary life: listening, fragility, memory, and collective practices. A poetic manifesto against the rhetoric of grand gestures, featuring 111 international artists across installations, video, performance and site-specific works.

This year’s edition is grounded in a deep trust in artists as vital interpreters of our social and psychic condition; catalysts for new relationships and possibilities. The exhibition brings together artistic practices that open portals, renew and nourish, foster encounter and connection, and advance concepts and forms through networks and communities understood in an open, informal sense.

The intended effect blends cohesion and dissonance in the manner of a free-jazz ensemble: a poetics that, like jazz, moves fluidly across methods, scales, senses, and forms, offering an experience that is more sensory than didactic.

The Italian Pavilion

Housed in the Tese delle Vergini at the Arsenale, the Italian Pavilion stands out among the 100 national pavilions on display. The project Con te con tutto (With You, With Everything), curated by Cecilia Canziani and realised by artist Chiara Camoni, pays tribute to the collective dimension of artistic making.

Twenty-four human-scale sculptures, composed of natural and artificial elements, greet visitors in the half-light. Archaic and solemn figures, they appear as guardians of a world in which every material is allowed to flourish.

Collateral Events worth visiting

Alongside the main exhibition, 31 collateral events approved by the curator animate historic palaces, foundations and churches across Venice. Among the most anticipated is Marina Abramović’s first solo exhibition at the Gallerie dell’Accademia: a landmark moment, as she is the first living artist to be granted this honour by the institution.

At Punta della Dogana, the Pinault Collection in partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York presents a major retrospective dedicated to Lorna Simpson, a pioneer of conceptual photography, featuring paintings, collages, sculptures and film.
Also noteworthy is the British Pavilion, where Lubaina Himid explores themes of belonging and identity in motion.

Practical Information

The exhibition is open daily except Monday (with the following exceptions: 11 May, 1 June, 7 September, and 16 November).

Opening hours vary by season:

• Summer hours (9 May – 27 September): 11:00–19:00; on Fridays and Saturdays the Arsenale remains open until 20:00.
• Autumn hours (29 September – 22 November): 10:00–18:00.

Tickets can be purchased online at labiennale.org (€0.50 booking fee) or at the on-site Infopoints.