09/06/2026
✨ PROYECTO’ACE AT LA BIENNALE Venice 2026
Proyecto'ace had the opportunity to attend the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia during its inaugural month and to experience firsthand "In Minor Keys", the final curatorial vision of the late Koyo Kouoh.
🌍 The exhibition proposed listening, care, memory, spirituality, and slower ways of engaging with the world. Yet Venice 2026 was anything but quiet; this Biennale will also be remembered for its controversies: protests and demonstrations, artists publicly questioning institutional structures, members of award juries resigning, and artists refusing prizes chosen by the public. The tensions of our contemporary moment were impossible to separate from the artworks themselves.
💭 Perhaps that is what made this edition so compelling. The most meaningful conversations were not only inside the Giardini and Arsenale but throughout the city, where collateral exhibitions and independent projects presented artists who have been addressing these same political, social, ecological, and spiritual questions for decades.
✨ Among our highlights are The Holy See Pavilion, “The ear is the eye of the soul”, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers, being one of the venues the Mystical Garden of the Discalced Carmelites where contemplation became a form of resistance; the Indonesian Pavilion curated by Aminudin Siregar (which we will feature in a dedicated post)hosted at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, and the Argentina, Poland, Saudi Arab and Spain Pavilions, among others.
Among the collateral exhibitions, Marina Abramović's major retrospective at the Gallerie dell'Accademia undoubtedly stood out. Equally compelling was the Pinault Collection's presentation at Punta della Dogana, featuring the remarkable works of Nazareth (Brazil) and Lorna Simpson (United States).
📍 Venice reminded us that contemporary art is not a consensus. It is a space of debate, disagreement, beauty, uncertainty, and possibility. This year, what happened beyond the Biennale was often as powerful as what happened within it.
