“In Minor Keys” 61st Venice Biennale  |

Merde. This is the primary thought that takes form in my head as soon as I’ve acclimatized to the mammoth endeavor that I’ve simply agreed to. Koyo Kouoh could have titled her Venice Biennale “In Minor Keys” to underscore the necessity for communal listening, for tuning in to quiet, poetic moments that reveal themselves slowly, with time. Yet time is the very factor in shortest provide throughout each single Biennale pre-opening week, as queues spring up like mushrooms after the rain and the beckoning pull of a Cynar spritz is barely ever two steps away. I’ve by no means skilled jealousy fairly like watching different writers and editors scurrying round from the Giardini to the Arsenale and again once more, attempting to squeeze in a gap in a far-flung nook of Giudecca, adopted by an hour- lengthy non-public boat journey to an deserted island earlier than making it again in time for aperitivo, dinner, and a minimum of two It Parties at night time. Experience has taught me that planning in Venice is equal to setting oneself up for failure, but the primary hours again within the Laguna already had me hyperventilating from my rigorously cultivated lack of preparation. Call me a masochist, if you’ll. 

With this in thoughts, and feeling considerably giddy, it solely is smart to make some high quality time for La Merde (2026), Aline Bouvy’s movie challenge for the Luxembourg Pavilion, by which the protagonist is a humanoid lump of shit. In her signature humorous model, Bouvy presents up a modern-day fable by which excrement will not be solely lifted out of the annals of historical past to tackle the lead function, however it successfully turns into our soiled (and dirty-minded) doppelgänger, the one we rapidly push below the carpet within the hope that nobody else will discover. In a bar, an initially prudish lady finds consolation and solace within the gooey, brown folds of the embodied turd. In a efficiency afterward, the leery-eyed determine proceeds to handpick candidates for public humiliation and discomfort. In each instances it’s disgrace, the instrument which Western society and tradition makes use of to reject and sideline these of its selecting, that will get a starring invoice. As far as rest room humor goes, Bouvy is on a par with Jonathan Swift, whose seventeenth-century satirical essays, novels, and poems, reminiscent of A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed (1731), used scatological themes to deliver to mild the societal hypocrisies of his time. If cleanliness is subsequent to godliness, then we should always take a great go searching and climb down from our ethical excessive horses. 

This yr’s Biennale is marked by loss, ache, and disappearance greater than another in latest historical past, so maybe it’s unsurprising that humor and the absurd seem in several guises throughout varied initiatives on the town. Because typically, what else is there left to say? Not that anyone wants a recap at this level, however the days previous the Biennale and the pre-opening week resembled one thing akin to the plot of a telenovela crossed with a Hollywood thriller. On April 30, mere days earlier than the VIP opening, the worldwide jury chosen by Koyo Kouoh issued a collective resignation letter, citing their Statement of Intention, revealed one week earlier on e-flux, as the explanation for his or her mass refusal to adjust to enterprise as typical, and by which they promised to “refrain from considering those countries whose leaders are currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.” Let’s name the elephant within the room by its identify, or quite their names: Russia and Israel. Add to this the heightened carabinieri presence; Israel’s relegation to the supposedly secure haven of the close by Arsenale; a Pussy Riot and Femen-led joint protest within the Giardini — pink balaclavas, coloured flares, and punk music in tow — that compelled the momentary closure of the Russian pavilion; and the primary strike within the Biennale’s 131- yr historical past on May 8, organized by the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) along with native activist teams, which resulted within the full or partial closure of over twenty-five nationwide pavilions. Top all of it off with experiences, initially revealed by Italian information company Adnkronos after which relayed to a global viewers by Hyperallergic, that the actual purpose behind the jury’s resignation was a menace by Belu-Simion Fainaru — the artist representing Israel — to file a lawsuit within the European Court of Human Rights for “racial discrimination” and “antisemitism,” doubtlessly leaving the jury members uncovered to being “held personally liable for damages in case of a dispute,” and writing concerning the precise artwork begins to really feel like a futile job worthy of Sisyphus. 

Forgive me, then, if I search occasional respite in an uneasy giggle. Historically, fables have served the aim of influencing public opinion by embedding ethical classes inside their tales. In the darkened Czech and Slovak Pavilion, Jakub Jansa’s standout movie The Silence of the Mole (2026) facilities on the anthropomorphic titular character of a beloved youngsters’s animated sequence that first aired within the Nineteen Fifties, and extra particularly on Mr. M., the performer who embodied the character of the mole his complete life. Acting as an alternative to life turns into a double-edged sword as Mr. M. transforms into an more and more Kafkaesque determine teetering on the point of emotional and psychological collapse. In one scene, he asks, “Will we be good today?” to which the reply is a powerful: “No, no, no way.” 

I’m nonetheless pondering the inherent that means of “goodness” in right this moment’s international shitshow, framed by megalomaniacal insanity and the each day stress exerted on anybody’s sense of humanity, after I gingerly step into the Japan Pavilion the place Ei Arakawa-Nash has assembled a nursery of greater than 200 child dolls. Ignoring the truth that guests are supposed to carry a doll whereas surveying the opposite items on show — together with a video of Arakawa- Nash’s personal twins watching video excerpts referring to the world (and its politics), a baby-changing station, or dates that anchor the act of childrearing and queer parenthood inside a wider constellation of historic narratives — I stroll round taking all of it in, till I bump right into a pal who, seeing me empty-handed, promptly transfers his doll into my reluctant arms. Although this does appear to be the “happy” pavilion, as soon as I’ve come down from the sudden child excessive, I’m left with a troubling aftertaste. It could also be stating the plain, however as one fellow curator identified: How are we to reconcile the disparity between grown adults laughing and strolling round armed with child dolls, all of whom seem like they might be at a rave, with pictures of atrocities dedicated in opposition to actual infants in Gaza (as one instance)? Have we change into so desensitized? Or is that this a part of the spectacularization of artwork that Venice knowingly trades in? In Maja Malou Lyse’s movie with DIS Things To Come (2026) on the Danish Pavilion, the query of fertility is a equally high-stakes subject — large bouncing breasts and waxed crotch pictures threaten to nearly swallow the unsuspecting spectator. Faced with a worldwide decline in male fertility, porn turns into mankind’s savior, based mostly on a scientific examine that exhibits a direct hyperlink between immersive VR porn and improved sperm high quality. If this makes it sound like the times of the alpha male are numbered, in an adjoining gallery, tiny screens inserted into the floor of a medical show of cryogenic bins utilized in fertility clinics display clips of “sperm races,” a latest and rising phenomenon that seems like masturbation crossed with excessive aggressive sports activities and a Red Bull sponsorship. 

I resolve to skip the queue snaking its manner round Florentina Holzinger’s piss-and-aqua-themed exhibit and as an alternative search refuge with the Greeks, straight reverse. Two semi-flaccid tender sculptures bearing digital prints of historical Greek ruins pave the way in which to the pavilion’s entrance. Billed within the press launch as “a present-day Platonic Cave,” by which “digital illusion, post-truth, and cultural consumption” collide, Andreas Angelidakis’s set up seems like entering into the darkish room of a homosexual intercourse membership solely to search out oneself in a historical past lesson about what constitutes (fashionable) Greekness, all whereas below the visible stroboscopic results of MDMA. As I depart, I overhear Angelidakis explaining to a journalist that the skinny black veil overlaying the doorway is a quiet reference to Vaso Katraki, a Greek artist who received a prize on the 1966 Venice Biennale however was later imprisoned for her political opinions. And identical to that, there it’s — one of many minor keys extending past the primary exhibition and revealing itself within the interstices. 

Ruins of a more moderen previous, that of the previous GDR, are unearthed and canopy the façade and inside of the German Pavilion in a joint presentation by Sung Tieu and Henrike Naumann. While their formal vocabularies couldn’t be extra totally different, this pairing makes good sense. Tieu has hidden the pavilion’s imposing Nazi-era façade behind a trompe-l’oeil mosaic that depicts the stays of what might be any East German prefabricated condominium block, however which was as soon as the artist’s childhood house and one of many largest dormitories for Vietnamese contract employees. Despite its scale, the work is so delicate as to be nearly imperceptible, till your eye falls on the graffiti — “Refugees,” “Enzo” —that Tieu has diligently transferred onto the mosaic. The work feels just like the artist’s most private to this point, and within the pavilion’s interior wings Tieu presents a sequence devoted to her mom: the human physique damaged down into items of measurement. Naumann’s set up, accomplished earlier than her premature passing earlier this yr, excavates ghosts that, for her, had by no means resolutely stayed previously. Set in opposition to a sickly mint-green backdrop, the identical colour that was used within the former Soviet military barracks of the GDR, is a hieroglyphic bas-relief composed of chairs, injured curtains, and different small-scale objects (keys, desk lamps, candlesticks, and so forth). They are presided over by two murals: an inside within the model of New German Design, and a reinterpretation of a Socialist Realist mural that was initially created by the artist’s grandfather. Deploying methods of furnishing, (re)overlaying, and inhabiting, the artists’ practices converge to deliver to mild different histories of their nation, together with these which have been pushed apart however which have additionally resisted being interiorized by mainstream politics. 

Venturing into the “outside world,” it’s as soon as once more the quieter, much less clearly spectacular works that stay with me. I make time to permit my thoughts, eyes, and ears to change into enveloped by Marina Xenofontos’s superbly lyrical challenge for the Cypriot Pavilion, hidden simply across the nook from the Arsenale, and which, just like the German Pavilion, is one thing of a household affair. The area, upon first coming into, seems to be fully empty. As I do know that appearances might be deceiving, I persevere. Right above me hangs a wood ceiling with an ideal circle minimize by means of its heart, revealing it to be one of many works: an actual duplicate (based mostly on the one present {photograph}) of the modernist ceiling of a no-longer-existing nightclub in a no-longer-existing metropolis, the ghost city of Varosha, which since 1974 has been deserted attributable to its geographical scenario, sitting snugly within the militarized buffer zone that cuts the island in two. However, it’s one other type of (oral and aural) archive that resounds sometimes on this area and which is essentially the most transferring a part of Xenofontos’s challenge. You introduced essentially the most lovely. And essentially the most lovely is the wound in your chest (2026) is an audio composition of folks songs, which in Cyprus, a nonetheless deeply non secular and patriarchal society, would have been historically sung by males. Yet right here, they’re carried out by the older ladies of Xenofontos’s household, a easy however radical positioning of themselves inside their group and a type of cultural transmission that pulls its power from feminine solidarity and friendship. 

My style for deserted cities and ghosts leads me subsequent to the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation the place Lydia Ourahmane has taken the Venetian island of Poveglia — for a very long time thought of to be haunted attributable to it beforehand getting used to deal with an asylum for the mentally unwell, and due to this fact prevented by locals — as muse. Simply titled “5 Works,” it’s an train in magnificence and restraint. Over one ton of decommissioned Venetian resort bedlinen, parked in tall metallic laundry baskets, turns into a sculptural assemblage. It’s additionally a stark reminder of the invisible labor that ensures that vacationers to the town, together with the Biennale crowd, preserve coming again. In one other room, a pot of greens bubbles away by itself, releasing steam and barely-there savory aromas into the air round it. I make a psychological observe to myself that that is the place I’ll most definitely be trying to find consolation by the tip of my journey. Last however definitely not least in my whirlwind tour is the place I at all times go to when all the pieces — individuals, vernissages, the quantity of Campari coursing by means of my veins — turns into an excessive amount of. “Canicula” is the third and final exhibition within the cycle organized by Fondazione In Between Art Film at Complesso dell’Ospedaletto. It is, as at all times, meticulously produced and introduced (contemplating that half the time in group exhibitions in Venice is spent determining which art work belongs to which artist, I can’t emphasize my gratitude to the curators for this). Glistening male torsos dancing in abandon at a rave in a meat refrigeration facility (Janis Rafa, Baby I’m Yours, Forever, 2026); machines and humanoid robotic figures caught in a gradual dance of incessant optimization, by which the tip level isn’t in sight (Yuyan Wang, Boring Billion, 2026); or a sequence of filmic tableaux by which Ukrainian actors play the function of aged Russian troopers, confounding the separation line between staging and testimony, confession and propaganda, forgiveness and accountability (Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk, Wishful Thinking, 2026): it will be greater than straightforward to lose myself for an entire day within the huge areas of the previous hospital by which “Canicula” is held. Alas, the vaporetto to the airport waits for nobody — definitely not me — and so I have to depart, casting behind me a final, forlorn look of arrivederci.