To say that just one aspect of this Venice Biennale is unprecedented would be to understate all that circumstance has dealt this edition of the international art festival. While controversies surrounding several national pavilions—Israel, Russia, the US, South Africa, and Australia, to name a few—loom large, the unexpected death of the central exhibition’s curator, Koyo Kouoh, one year ago looms largest. Before her death, Kouoh had defined the exhibition, titled “In Minor Keys,” and written its curatorial text, as well as appointed a team of five advisers—Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Siddhartha Mitter, Marie Hélène Pereira, Rasha Salti, and Rory Tsapayi, referred to in the catalog as La Squadra di Koyo—to carry forward her vision.
The 110 artists and collectives whose work is spread between the Giardini’s Central Pavilion and the Arsenale and the venues’ outdoor spaces show disparate ways of making art in a time when contemporary life feels surreal and magically real, where beauty and aesthetics coincide with the constant onslaught of geopolitical events. The exhibition, as Kouoh writes, “intends neither a litany of commentary on world events, nor an inattention or escape from compounding and continuous intersecting crises.”
