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Trends might rapidly shift in the art world—fairs pop up around the globe, museums unveil new wings, galleries debut and shutter—but the Venice Biennale remains the definite voice of the industry’s zeitgeist.
The 130-year-old tradition, which opens this year on May 9 and runs through November 22, has provided the grand pattern for the world’s other biennials. This is, after all, the show that triggered Andrew Carnegie to launch the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. The format is cemented: a main exhibition, organized by an acclaimed curator and featuring over 100 global artists, anchors the event. Meanwhile, national pavilions exhibit participant countries’ mini projects around themes close to the central show. This year’s main exhibition—titled In Minor Keys and organized by the late Zeitz MOCAA executive director and curator Koyo Kouoh—and the 99 pavilions explore notions of introspection, which may sound challenging during the always-energetic preview week, which often finds visitors navigating the ambitious collateral shows inside the city’s palazzi and less expected corners. The biennial is divided between two sites—the Giardini which is a large garden founded by Napoleon in the early 19th-century to host the show and the first group of pavilions and the Arsenale, a 13th-century shipping yard—while the concurrent shows are peppered all over town and its nearing islands.
Inside the Fondazione Dries Van Noten in Venice, which will be open during the Biennial with an inaugural group exhibition.
Melissa McGill is no stranger to Venice—she has, in fact, has been returning every year since she moved back to the United States after a two-year stint in the city in 1993. The crescendo in the her decades-long back-and-forth was the 2019 project, Red Regatta, in which 52 sailboats floated the Venetian lagoons with their crimson-colored sails. Set against a medley of blue waters and the sky in an akin hue, the boats’ literal red flags conveyed a poetic intervention as well as an alarm for the impending natural catastrophe that disrupts the city today. Fluidity and caution are again entangled in McGill’s Marea. The city’s historic Corte Nova is the project’s protagonist, hosting a hovering 245-foot long stretch of 100 paintings the artist created in collaboration with local students and residents. The scenic alley’s symbolic laundry lines suspend the wash of azure-colored abstractions which aim to turn our attention to the gradually rising water levels and tourist numbers. Positioned between the biennial’s two main sites, the 10-day installation offers an unexpected shelter and a pause against the marathon, but, most importantly, McGill’s outing—for which she received support from the Italian National Commission for UNESCO and the Italian Ambassador to the United States—is also a call for action.
Another spot of discovery is Giardini Reali, near Piazza San Marco, where Illy displays a collaboration with participant artists amidst a lush garden. A long tradition for the biennial’s fans, Illy’s Venice Biennial cups always features a quarter of main show artists who translate their work on view to grace the espresso cups. Unexpectedly compliant with the show’s suggestion of ease and attention to the very moment, the joy of slowly slipping espresso this year is elevated by artists that include Cape Town-based painter Thania Petersen whose motif of two hands entangled with plants offers an intimate slice of her work on view a short stroll away.
The flirtatious gondoliere are not the only cruisers around the canals this spring—their competition is Hernan Bas’s notoriously sultry youth, who have dominated his expressive paintings for over two decades. The Miami-based artist’s footing in the city is an exhibition of 30 new paintings at the Grand Canal-adjacent galleries of the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art. Anyone who seek Bas’s signature uncompromising flamboyance will be pleased with the show titled The Tourists. Fitting in nicely with the marble-clad Baroque palace’s ornate decor, the young men inhabit situations relatable to any visitor of a desirable destination: They graciously plunge in Reykjavik’s blue lagoon or stand aloof in front of the Mona Lisa. But beyond their curious gestures and contemplative detachment, Bas invites us to seek authenticity and autonomy.
Hernan Bas’s HB, Alone with Lisa (the Louvre, Paris) 2025 is among the works by the aritst on display at the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Ar.
It isn’t just international artists whose work must be seen. The Biennial’s preview week offers an unbeatable slot for local art institutions to deliver their most ambitious offerings as well. Scuola Piccola Zattere, which is known for longterm residencies of global artists who transform their experiences into in situ exhibitions, will offer a soothing setting for Rachel Youn’s new sculptures, which stem from the artist’s three-month sojourn at the 19th-century building, which has recently been renovated by Milan’s Fosbury Architecture.
Museo Fortunyis a Venetian favorite thanks to its ample display of fabrics and art tied to the legacy of the textile house started by Mariano Fortuny. The museum calls the 15th-century gothic building Palazzo Pesaro Orfei home, and benefits from its owner’s rich history with lush fabrics and the venue’s commanding interiors. Add to this riveting overlap the uber contemporary and provocative lexicon of artist the Austrian artist Erwin Wurm. The Viennese sculptor’s humanoid forms which rub elbows with everyday objects in splashy juxtapositions have taken him to museums across the globe, and here, he pays homage to textural depth evident in the museum’s every corner.
Among the Grand Canal’s most coveted jewels, the Palazzo Pisani Moretta has seen many lives and soirees, including splashy masquerades and extravagant weddings. Dries Van Noten has, however, breathed new life to the 15th-century Gothic Floral style beauty with his new Fondazione Dries Van Noten. In the core of the foundation’s mission lies a dedication to preserve the building’s architectural particularity, which includes Baroque interiors, while presenting a cutting-edge outlook at today’s design, art, and craft. The inaugural group exhibition, THE ONLY TRUE PROTEST IS BEAUTY, is a testimony on Van Noten’s longterm vision and displays some two hundred works in dialogue with those by the 17th-century masters Giambattista Tiepolo and Gaspare Diziani. Besides pieces from the designer’s own repertoire, he has cherrypicked works by artists such as Steven Shearer, craftspeople that include Ayham Hassan, and his colleagues, like Rei Kawakubo.
Dale Chihuly’s Blue and Green Tower will be on view in the garden of Venice’s Palazzo Franchetti.
The prized possession of Gallerie dell’Accademia may be Leonardo da Vinci’s 15th-century drawing The Vitruvian Man. The 275-year old establishment, however, is to host—unbelievably—it’s very first exhibition dedicated to a living woman artist: Marina Abramović.
Venice is often a city to which artists return, even decades after their debuts, and Dale Chihuly is no exception now, three decades since the iconic glass artist mounted his Chihuly Over Venice project. CHIHULY: Venice 2026 sees three large scale sculptures positioned across Grand Canal where scale and light never fail to manifest their unique optics. A scene stealer in the show, co-presented by Pilchuck Glass School and Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, is a gold-covered, 30-foot burgeoning form installed at the garden of Palazzo Franchetti. The city’s centuries of tradition in glassmaking undoubtedly renders Chihuly’s presence one to watch in a packed list of collateral shows, and given his works’ scale and colors, his statement is surely hard to miss.
Osman Can Yerebakan is a New York-based freelance art and culture writer and curator.
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