Venice Biennale Returns With Invitation for Quiet Reflection

The Venice Art Biennale —one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious international art exhibitions—returns for its 61st edition under the theme “In Minor Keys,” a musical metaphor inviting quieter, more reflective engagement with contemporary art. The theme honors the late Cameroonian-Swiss curator Koyo Kouoh, former chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, who shaped the exhibition’s vision before her death last year. Among the participants is renowned British artist Lubaina Himid, born in Zanzibar, whose large-scale and immersive installations explore race and national identity. Himid told the British Council, the UK’s international organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities, that its invitation to her to represent the British Pavilion at the biennale is both “a great honor” and an opportunity to create work that “resonates with multiple audiences, communicates with complex histories and looks to a more collaborative future.” 

Venice, Italy, May 9-November 22.