"The 61st Venice Biennale will be realised in full accordance with the vision of its curator, Koyo Kouoh, who died in May 2025. Born in Douala, Cameroon, Kouoh was the executive director of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MoCAA) in Cape Town. She would have been the first African woman to curate the Biennale, still the world's most prestigious art event (700,000 people attended the 2024 Biennale, curated by Adriano Pedrosa)."
"With the full support of Kouoh's family, the management of the Venice Biennale decided to carry out her exhibition. Maria Cristiana Costanzo, the Biennale's head of press, says Kouoh had worked intensively on the development of the curatorial project, defining its theoretical framework, selecting artists and works, appointing catalogue contributors, determining the exhibition's graphic identity and spatial design, and engaging directly with the invited participants. "Everything you will see is the fruit of her work," Costanzo says."
The 61st Venice Biennale will run at the Arsenale and Giardini from 9 May to 22 November and will follow Koyo Kouoh's curatorial plan after her death in May 2025. Kouoh, born in Douala and former executive director of Zeitz MoCAA in Cape Town, prepared the theoretical framework, selected artists and works, appointed catalogue contributors, and determined graphic identity and spatial design. With the full support of her family and Biennale management, her core team will finalise the exhibition. Kouoh framed the show around a 'minor key' aesthetic that emphasises quiet tones, lower frequencies, hums and poetic consolation, and calls for a reconnection between art and society.
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