The central international exhibition of the 61st Venice Biennale, titled In Minor Keys, opened to the public on May 9, 2026, running through November 22 across the Giardini and the Arsenale. Its curator, Koyo Kouoh, died in 2025 at the age of 57, exactly one year before the opening. Having established the conceptual rubric, artist roster, and spatial architecture, her vision was brought to fruition by a designated seven-member curatorial team.
These tragic circumstances inevitably frame the exhibition's reception. Writing for Wallpaper*, reviewers described the presentation as deeply permeated by grief, yet calibrated with an elegiac, meditative serenity. In The Art Newspaper, critics awarded the exhibition three-and-a-half stars, conceding the impossibility of realizing any posthumous curatorial vision without subtle shifts in emphasis.
From the perspective of figuration, the exhibition's most arresting moment is Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons's commemorative canvas. Kouoh is depicted perched upon magnolia branches, equipped with the talons of a bird of prey; beside her sits author Toni Morrison, similarly envisioned. This double portrait establishes a profound dialogue, situating the deceased curator directly within the exhibition she conceived. One of portraiture's oldest ontological functions—compensating for bodily absence—here converges with an act of institutional tribute.
The title’s polysemy—invoking both musical minor tonalities and the geographic insularity of archipelago "cays" (keys)—was underscored by The Art Newspaper. For contemporary figuration, this thematic architecture is consequential: throughout the galleries, the spotlight falls not on heroic figures of imperial history, but on subdued, intimate bodies that converse in quiet undertones.
In his review for Artnet News, Ben Davis offered a contrasting reading. Conceived twelve months prior, the exhibition’s introspective restraint struggled, in his view, to withstand the crushing geopolitical anxieties of 2026. These interpretations are not mutually exclusive. What Kouoh constructed around principles of hospitality and attentive listening functions for some visitors as an oasis of quiet solace, and for others as a fragile answer to escalating global discord.
Above all, the exhibition interrogates the nature of curatorial authorship. When an exhibition is mounted without the physical presence of its architect, whose exhibition does it become? The Biennale offered no definitive answer—and perhaps this deliberate silence was the most faithful tribute to Kouoh’s ethos.
Sources: Wallpaper* (May 7, 2026); The Art Newspaper (May 8, 2026); Artnet News, Ben Davis (May 6, 2026); Universes in Universe.