Koyo Kouoh has been announced as the curator of the 61st Venice Biennale, which will take place in 2026. Kouoh will be the first African woman to hold the prestigious position of curating the International Art Exhibition, which is seen as one of the most important shows of its kind in the world.
Kouoh, a curator and scholar born in Cameroon and raised in Switzerland, is the executive director and chief curator of Cape Town’s Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), a position she has held since 2019. She was previously the founding artistic director of RAW Material Company art center in Dakar and has worked in the curatorial teams of major exhibitions including Documenta 12 and 13. In 2016, she curated the Irish contemporary art biennial EVA International and was also curator of the educational and artistic program of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair between 2013 and 2017. More recently, her 2022 exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA “When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting,” which explored themes of Black identity and representation, received significant critical acclaim. The show traveled to the Kunstmuseum Basel earlier this year.
Kouoh called the Venice appointment a “once-in-a-lifetime honor” and reflected on the Biennale’s long history as a global gathering for art and ideas. “It is a privilege to follow in the footsteps of luminary predecessors…and to compose an exhibition that I hope will carry meaning for the world we currently live in—and most importantly, for the world we want to make,” she said.
Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, the Biennale’s president, called Kouoh’s appointment “the acknowledgment of a broad horizon of vision at the dawn of a day profuse with new words and eyes.”
Though the 2024 Venice Biennale has only just closed, details about the 2026 edition of the art event have begun to trickle out in the last month. For example, Yto Barrada was recently announced to represent France at the 2026 Biennale. Other artists who have been selected for national pavilions include Abbas Akhavan for Canada; Merike Estna for Estonia; Isabel Nolan for Ireland; and Aline Bouvy for Luxembourg.
