6 Must-See Pavilions at the Venice Biennale
From late curator Koyo Kouoh’s assembly of 111 artists at the Central Pavilion to Florentina Holzinger’s body-led warning on rising tides
Even in the context of 21st-century life, the buildup to the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia has been uncommonly controversial. But one thing is certain: between Saturday, May 9 and Sunday, November 22, hundreds of thousands of art world luminaries and lookie-loos will fly, drive, and boat their way through the pavilions within the Giardini and Arsenale. The excessiveness of the biennale model is part of its ephemeral charm, so give up the idea of seeing every last thing. Instead, here’s a list of suggestions to chart your own path.
1. “In Minor Keys” at the Central Pavilion
Before her untimely death last year, curator Koyo Kouoh assembled some 111 participating artists for the main exhibition, and a small group of curators and writers to finish the work she began. Highlights begin at the entrance, with a collaboration between Jo-ey Tang and the collective fierce pussy, who installed a flag within the 1952 Carlo Scarpa ticket booth. Deeper inside, Big Chief Diamond shows a vibrant ritual suit of red ostrich feathers, a tribute to the Black Masking traditions in New Orleans. Elsewhere, Bugarin + Castle’s invoke charivari “shame parades” for Scotland, an Early Modern phenomenon familiar to us in the social media age. And around the corner from the Arsenale, Derrick Adams has installed a monumental portrait of Kouoh herself, watching over the hustle and bustle her work has occasioned.
2. “Seaworld Venice” at the Austria Pavilion, Giardini
Artist Florentina Holzinger seems to have awoken the whole world by turning her own body into a clapper for a giant bronze bell. It’s an unsubtle alarm, warning us about the rising tides threatening Venice itself. It’s also a summoning to her other performances, which flood the Austrian Pavilion with water to make the art space a theme park she rides upon a jetski, and a dunk tank filled with (clean, recycled) water from a fully-functional sewage treatment that visitors can, well, activate via portable toilets.
3. “Across Worlds” at the Timor-Leste Pavilion, Arsenale
The Southeast Asian country makes its debut in the Arsenale with a group show of polyphonic, multi-media work, which includes nonagenarian Verónica Pereira Maia’s bravura textile tribute to those killed in a 1991 massacre, Tais Don (1994-99); a new commission from Juventino Madeira, Fraze ne’ebe seidauk hotu (An Unfinished Sentence), which blends choreography and multiscreen video into a vibrant rumination on time; and a new sound installation from Etson Caminha, CUALE (Flow), which not only samples spoken and sung languages but seems to soundtrack the other work seamlessly.
4. “Predicting History: Testing Translation” at the Great Britain Pavilion, Giardini
Lubaina Himid, the UK Black Art originator and Turner Prize winner, debuts a suite of large paintings and sculptures, making connections between migration and home. Her multi-panel Architects (2026), for example, sets community centers including mosques and churches beside portraits of people seeming to puzzle through whether to stay near them or go—perhaps via the back wall of oars she’s painted and surrounded by audio work made by her partner, Magda Stawarska.
5. “Liberation Space: Fortress/Nest” at the Korea Pavilion, Giardini
When Korea removed itself from Japanese rule in 1945, the country entered into what became known as “liberation space.” This cultural and political moment of hope and fear now becomes, thanks to curator Binna Choi, a series of sculptural and performance interventions. Goen Choi has constructed a series of copper pipes that perforate the pavilion’s structures and form tense and unpredictable circulation paths that seem to snake towards the nearby Japanese pavilion. Inside, an octet of handmade “stations” and thousands of wax-coated organza circles, all crafted by Hyeree Ro, create situations for mourning and transformation.
6. “The Ear Is the Eye of the Soul” at Pavilion of the Holy See, in the Mystical Garden of the Discalced Carmelites and the Complesso di Santa Maria Ausiliatrice
Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers, in collaboration with the Soundwalk Collective, have commissioned two dozen sound works for the Pavilion of the Holy See, paying homage to the 12th-century composer Saint Hildegard of Bingen. Interpretations of her musical and text-based work—from notables including Brian Eno, FKA Twigs, Devonté Hynes, Laraaji, Terry Riley, Precious Okoyomon, Suzanne Ciani, and the Benedictine Nuns of the Abbey of St. Hildegard Eibingen—will be offered via headphones for visitors to contemplate in the wandering, shady garden. Visitors to the complex can examine Hildegard’s archive, the new Tatiana Bilbao Estudio architecture, and the final work by German filmmaker Alexander Kluge.