Exhibitions in Venice 2026

Curator Koyo Kouoh passed away unexpectedly in May 2025, after having fully developed the curatorial concept. Her vision "In Minor Keys" invites us to shift down a gear and tune in to the frequencies of minor keys – a deliberate departure from the hectic noise of the present. Koyo Kouoh, one of the most influential voices in the contemporary art world, had already selected the participating artists, defined the exhibition architecture and begun a dialogue about the choice of works. Her curatorial approach promised a Biennale that makes quiet tones audible and brings alternative perspectives into focus – a gesture both poetic and political in turbulent times.

A historic moment for the international art world: Marina Abramović, the grande dame of performance art, will be honoured in 2026 as the first woman to receive a monumental solo exhibition at the venerable Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia. The exhibition "Transforming Energy" runs parallel to the 61st Biennale Arte and marks a turning point in the 260-year history of the museum. As the first living artist to be given a major solo show at the Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia – in celebration of her 80th birthday.

The International Gallery of Modern Art in Palazzo Ca' Pesaro in Venice presents a major retrospective of the celebrated British painter Jenny Saville. This exhibition marks Saville's first major solo event in the lagoon city.

From 5 May to 27 September 2026, Fondazione Giorgio Cini presents Georg Baselitz's Eroi d'Oro: new gold-ground paintings as the sum of 60 years of painting. Larger-than-life self-portraits and his muse Elke hover fragmentarily on shimmering gold – fragile, yet sublime as icons. A reference back to the Heroes series of 1965, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero.

Nairobi-born artist Michael Armitage presents a comprehensive retrospective of his decade-long career. Curated by Jean-Marie Gallais in collaboration with Hans-Ulrich Obrist, the exhibition features monumental paintings that interweave references to East Africa with Western mythology and art history. On the upper floor of Palazzo Grassi, Indian filmmaker Amar Kanwar installs his monumental video installation "The Peacock's Graveyard". The work invites meditation on transience and the cycle of life.

Around fifty works from four decades of artistic practice document Simpson's impressive career: from the conceptual photography of the 1980s to the painting that has dominated her practice for the past 15 years. The exhibition includes paintings, collages, videos, sculptures and installations from international institutions, private collections and the artist's studio. The second part of Punta della Dogana is given over to Brazilian performance artist Paulo Nazareth. For more than 15 years Nazareth has travelled barefoot across the Americas and the African continent – a bodily homage to his enslaved ancestors and a performative act of direct contact with the earth of his forebears.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection devotes its 2026 programme to two pivotal chapters in Peggy Guggenheim's career: in the spring, "Peggy Guggenheim a Londra. Nascita di una collezionista" tells the brief but consequential story of Guggenheim Jeune gallery and its avant-garde exhibitions. In autumn, "Fucina degli Angeli. Peggy Guggenheim e il vetro artistico del Novecento" reconstructs the collaboration of Murano masters with artists such as Braque, Calder, Fontana or Picasso, showing how glass became a medium of modern art.

From 6 March to 29 September 2026, Palazzo Ducale transforms the Appartamento del Doge into a portal to the pre-Roman soul of Italy. Here water is revealed not as mere resource, but as a pulsating primal force: bringer of life to settlements, bearer of divine revelations and architect of religious and social orders among Etruscans and Venetians. Seas, thermal springs and rivers – from Pyrgi to Altino – open up a fascinating panorama of the first millennium BC, where healing rituals and cultural dialogues merge in an elemental flow. An invitation to plumb the timeless magic of ancient water worlds.

British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor opens the doors of his Foundation in Palazzo Manfrin in Cannaregio for the second time. The exhibition brings together around 100 architectural models, monumental installations and mirror-polished stainless steel sculptures from five decades of his work – including iconic pieces such as "At the Edge of the World II" (1998) and "Descent into Limbo" (1992). The curatorial focus rests deliberately on process, the unrealised, and those works that lie beyond market logic. A rare opportunity to experience Kapoor's thinking about space within his own Venetian research site.

Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten launches his new foundation with a spectacular opening exhibition "The Only True Protest is Beauty" at Palazzo Pisani Moretta on the Grand Canal. Curated by Van Noten and Geert Bruloot, the show brings together over 200 works by more than 50 creators from fashion, art, design and craft – in dialogue with the palazzo's Rococo interior and Tiepolo frescoes. Van Noten's thesis: beauty as an act of protest.

The Museo di Palazzo Grimani presents the first solo exhibition in Italy of Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo (born 1984 in Accra). Produced by Gagosian and curated in dialogue with the Renaissance architecture of the palazzo, the show on the second floor presents a series of new works that Boafo has created especially for the Venetian context. Known for his characteristic technique of applying pigment to canvas with his fingers, Boafo connects Venice's rich tradition of portraiture with the contemporary representation of Black identity. A powerful encounter between Renaissance aura and contemporary imagery.

From 6 May to 22 November 2026, the Museo Fortuny dedicates the first major solo exhibition in Italy to Austrian sculptor Erwin Wurm. Across three floors of Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei, the iconic One Minute Sculptures, the Substitutes series and the eponymous Dreamers – oversized pillows borne by human limbs – enter into a dialogue with Mariano Fortuny's historic atelier. Humour, paradox and philosophical acuity combine into one of the most intelligent exhibitions of the Biennale season. Curated by Elisabetta Barisoni and Cristina Da Roit.

An old soap factory, 500 years of history, a visionary collector: AMA VENEZIA is more than an exhibition – it is a manifesto. With his new foundation, Laurent Asscher brings an impressive collection to Venice. The presentation unites international positions from the 1960s to the present, including works by Jenny Saville, Ed Ruscha, Tino Sehgal, Arthur Jafa, Laura Owens and Christopher Wool. Central are Saville's monumental body painting, a new work by Ed Ruscha on "Venice/Venezia" and a body-based piece by Tino Sehgal experienced in the dark; in parallel, further works from the AMA Collection on AI, technology and reproduction remain on view across the factory complex.

At Ca' Corner della Regina, the foundation's Venetian exhibition venue, Fondazione Prada presents Helter Skelter, curated by Nancy Spector: the show brings two key figures of contemporary visual culture – Jafa and Prince – into a focused dialogue centred on the appropriation of images from American popular culture, film, advertising and social media. Jafa uses video, montage and collage to make the African-American experience, trauma and power visible in the visual discourse of the USA, while Prince with provocative appropriations of advertising and lifestyle imagery probes the patterns of white male identity and the dark spaces of the American psyche. In Venice their works – partly large-format, partly in video- and photo-based arrangements – form a dense visual phantasmagoria in which questions of power, race, consumption and image production overlap.

The TBA21–Academy opens its season at Ocean Space with a powerful exhibition on cultural restitution, indigenous knowledge systems and the sea as a space of memory. Inside the former Chiesa di San Lorenzo, two site-specific installations unfold: From My Mother's Country by the Repatriates Collective – a walkable dune landscape of red sand from Anindilyakwa Country, populated by thousands of hand-made figures of shells and textile – and Weaving Connections by Verena Melgarejo Weinandt, which interrogates colonial image worlds through the ritual gestures of weaving and washing. Curated by Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll.