One of the largest international art projects of recent years was realized after the death of its conceptual author.
Such circumstances rarely remain merely a biographical footnote. In the case of In Minor Keys, they alter the very way the exhibition is read. Conceived as an exploration of memory, care, vulnerability, and difficult-to-articulate states, the Biennale is from the outset placed within a space of incompletion.

This is not only about the absence of the author. Rather, it reflects a broader sense of lost coordinates: stable political positions, familiar models of coexistence, trust in institutions, and confidence in the future itself. The death of artist Henrike Naumann before the opening of the German Pavilion further intensifies this feeling of fragility and interrupted presence.

The theme of In Minor Keys proposes a departure from grand manifestos and art as a display of power, shifting attention instead to forms of experience that usually remain outside the center of history.
The Biennale’s visual identity is built around the Japanese concept of komorebi—sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees—an image of ephemerality, diffused presence, and barely perceptible time.

After several days in the Giardini and the Arsenale, it becomes clear that many of the most compelling projects are united by an attention to what remains after destruction: archives, traces, vanishing identities, and unfinished memory. Thus, the central figure of this Biennale unexpectedly becomes not the hero, but the witness—the one who records the aftermath rather than the moment of catastrophe.

Yet the main paradox of In Minor Keys lies elsewhere. A Biennale devoted to quiet states and the refusal of grand gestures has turned out to be one of the most tense in recent years.
Political conflicts surrounding the participation of certain countries (primarily Israel and Russia), protests, institutional crises, disputes over the legitimacy of national representation, and boycotts have created a dense backdrop that cannot be fully separated from the artistic experience.

While many pavilions spoke of memory, care, and the possibility of coexistence, the space around art itself was occupied by conflicts, accusations, and debates over the boundaries of cultural autonomy.

The culmination of this tension was an unprecedented step: just days before the opening, the entire international jury resigned.
The formal reasons were not fully explained, but the decision followed a public statement by the jury declaring its intention not to consider for awards participants from countries whose leaders are under investigation by the International Criminal Court. Reports later emerged of legal risks and pressure from various parties involved.

The project in the Arsenale, by contrast, is structured as movement. The elongated architecture of the space transforms viewing into a process of passing through testimonies and collective traumas. A sense of procession emerges, as if the viewer is moving through a sequence of voices and witnesses.

As a result, the main exhibition is perceived almost as one continuous work, divided only by the architecture of Venice. It is here that Koyo Kouoh’s curatorial idea becomes most tangible: not a direct commentary on crises, but an exploration of what they leave behind within people and cultures.

At the Venice Biennale, there is always a risk that national pavilions will begin to overshadow the main exhibition. This year, that did not happen. Despite the intensity of discussions surrounding certain countries, it was the central project In Minor Keys that, in many cases, became the space for the most precise articulation of the proposed theme.




Before turning to an overview of the pavilions, it is worth highlighting several of the most memorable works.

María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Memory as a Form of Continuation

(Central Pavilion, Giardini)

María Magdalena Campos-Pons’ work Anatomy of the Magnolia Tree for Koyo Kouoh & Toni Morrison (2026) belongs to those pieces that are first perceived as a space and only later as an image.
There is no attempt at spectacle here. Instead, another state emerges: the sense of presence of those who are no longer physically here, yet whose influence continues to shape language, memory, and ways of seeing the world.

Campos-Pons has long worked with themes of migration, the African diaspora, family memory, loss, and cultural inheritance. However, within the context of this Biennale, her work - installed in the Central Pavilion in the Giardini - acquires an additional dimension. The dedication to Toni Morrison and Koyo Kouoh transforms the piece into something close to a ritual of preserving voices.
It is important that memory here is not romanticized. It exists as an active force, as something that continues to live within the present. This is precisely why the work leaves such a lasting impression. It speaks less about loss than about the impossibility of complete disappearance.
And perhaps this is one of the key tonalities of the current Venice Biennale: the most powerful works are not those that speak the loudest, but those that continue to exist within the viewer over time - not through tragic pathos, but through the preservation of voice.

Ebony G. Patterson: Between Luxury and Traces of Destruction

(Central Pavilion, Giardini)

One of the most visually intense works in the main exhibition belongs to Ebony G. Patterson. Her large-scale installations are initially perceived almost as spaces of excess: dense red forms, decorative elements, textiles, glittering surfaces, vegetal structures, and organic accumulations create an environment that simultaneously attracts and generates a sense of unease.

The first impression is one of beauty, overwhelming abundance, and almost Baroque ornamentation. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that this excess functions differently. The sense of luxury is constructed from fragments of consumption, traces of production, and materials circulating within postcolonial economies. The surface ceases to resemble mere decoration; ornament becomes a language through which collective traumas are articulated.

Within the context of In Minor Keys, Patterson’s installations acquire an especially precise resonance. They do not illustrate catastrophe, but instead create an almost physical sensation of a world after it—a space where memory continues to accumulate in layers, much like organic matter.

The red mass filling the space can be perceived simultaneously as landscape, body, coral, internal organ, or the trace of a collective presence. It is precisely this ambiguity that makes the work so enduring in memory. It does not offer a single interpretation and does not seek to be read literally.

Buhlebezwe Siwani: The Body as Archive

(Central Pavilion, Giardini)

Buhlebezwe Siwani’s works belong to those artistic practices that are difficult to consider solely within the field of art. She is not only an artist, but also an iSangoma and iNyanga - a bearer of South African healing traditions and spiritual practices. Therefore, many of her projects are perceived not as representations of experience, but as acts in themselves.

In the main exhibition of the Biennale, the artist turns to the image of Black femininity, placing it within a complex dialogue with the history of colonialism, the legacy of apartheid, and European artistic traditions. Nude female figures surrounded by protea and strelitzia flowers evoke Renaissance painting. Yet this familiar visual language is used differently: not to reinforce the canon, but to reconsider and transform it.

The Black female body here ceases to be an object of the gaze; it becomes a carrier of memory. Particularly significant is the presence of materials connected to healing practices, such as imphepho - a plant used in purification rituals and communication with ancestors.
As a result, the work begins to exist simultaneously between art and ritual.

The sculptures Zanenkosi and Ilifa lakhe, created from inexpensive green soap familiar to many low-income families in South Africa, address another almost invisible subject: pregnancy and motherhood. The artist uses a material associated with everyday life and economic inequality to speak about a condition that is perceived as a form of everyday survival.

Within the context of In Minor Keys, Buhlebezwe Siwani’s works appear especially precise, as they speak of memory not as a historical archive, but as something that exists within the body itself.

Kaloki Nyamai: A History Written Over Another History

(Arsenale)

Kaloki Nyamai’s monumental canvases in the Arsenale belong to those works that first create an almost physical impression through their scale, and only gradually reveal themselves as a complex system of traces, layers, and repetitions. His painting is not perceived as a single image; the surface constantly breaks apart into fragments, simultaneously evoking an archive, a map, a textile, and a damaged memory.

The artist’s practice is deeply connected to the history of Kenya, the collective heritage of the Kamba people, and the consequences of the colonial experience. However, within the context of In Minor Keys, these works extend far beyond a specific geography. They begin to speak about the mechanisms of memory itself—memory that never exists in a completed form and always remains a space of rewriting.
This is why his canvases produce an almost archaeological impression: the viewer encounters not so much a representation of the past, but its remains after countless acts of reinterpretation, loss, and attempts at preservation.

In the Arsenale, where many projects address collective experience, migration, and the prolonged duration of historical trauma, Nyamai’s works do not offer a ready-made statement and do not seek a direct political declaration. Instead, the artist presents history as an unstable surface, within which other histories continue to exist—displaced, forgotten, or yet to be told.

Sawangwongse Yawnghwe: The Experience of the Masses

(Arsenale)

People’s Desire (2018) by Sawangwongse Yawnghwe is one of those works in the Arsenale that is first perceived through rhythm and only gradually reveals itself as a human catastrophe. From a distance, the installation resembles an archaeological field or a map of an unknown territory. Up close, it becomes clear that the viewer is facing thousands of individual figures - people, families, bodies frozen in movement, awaiting displacement.

The work consists of numerous small clay sculptures arranged in a long collective procession. This almost monotonous repetition creates a powerful effect: individuality dissolves, giving way to the experience of the mass, exile, and forced migration. There is no heroic narrative here, only the accumulation of human presence.
The artist addresses memories of political violence, military regimes, and ethnic conflicts; however, People’s Desire extends beyond any specific geography. The work can be read as a visual archive of the present, in which millions of people exist in a state of transition between countries, identities, and systems.

It is especially significant that the material is clay - one of the most ancient carriers of memory. These figures appear simultaneously as testimonies of the past and as traces of future excavations. The installation becomes a kind of archaeology of the present: an attempt to capture an era of global instability through fragile human forms.

Within the context of the Arsenale, the work speaks quietly, without visual pressure, yet it is precisely this restraint that makes it one of the most compelling pieces.
People’s Desire addresses collective destiny not through the magnitude of tragedy, but through repetition - thousands of small figures, each of which could represent an individual story. This kind of art does not offer an answer. It leaves the viewer among countless traces, where questions of belonging, memory, and the right to movement remain unresolved.

Between the Main Exhibition and the National Pavilions: When a Theme Ceases to Be a Curatorial Framework

The theme of this year’s Biennale extended far beyond Koyo Kouoh’s curatorial concept. Memory, the fragility of systems, and the impossibility of definitive answers began to reappear in spaces created independently of one another. Perhaps this is because the reality of recent years has itself shaped a similar sensibility.

For this reason, the current exhibition is perceived as a polyphonic conversation: contradictory and conflict-filled. Yet, if this Venice Biennale truly had a shared intonation, it did not sound like a manifesto. Rather, it resembled a quiet question: what forms of memory, care, and collective existence are we still capable of preserving when the familiar mechanisms begin to collapse?
Perhaps this is the question that will remain after the pavilions close, lasting longer than any awards, rankings, or lists of the best projects. Because some exhibitions end with the season, while others continue to exist, having shaped a particular way of looking at the world.

Pavilions Most Resonant with the Intonation of In Minor Keys

Any attempt to compile a list of the “best” pavilions of the Venice Biennale is inevitably subjective. Scale, visual impact, or the amount of public discussion rarely correspond to the depth of an artistic statement. This is especially true in the case of In Minor Keys, where the curatorial concept itself was built around a rejection of the obvious gesture, the loud declaration, and art as a form of domination.
Therefore, this review does not seek to create a hierarchy of national exhibitions or identify winners. Rather, it pursues another goal: to highlight projects that most accurately captured the inner tone of the current Biennale - its attention to memory, fragility, slowness, incompletion, and those states that usually remain outside historical narratives.

What unites these pavilions is not a shared aesthetic or similarity of artistic methods. On the contrary, many of them exist within entirely different visual languages. Yet they all work with a similar type of sensitivity: a refusal of definitive answers, an attention to traces rather than events, an interest in what disappears rather than what asserts its own permanence, and a particular relationship with time.
This is why some of the most convincing projects of this Venice Biennale are not the loudest pavilions, nor those that generated the greatest amount of discussion.

Egypt: Silence as a Form of Presence

Commissioner: Ministry of Culture of the Arab Republic of Egypt - Egyptian Academy of Rome

Curator / Exhibitor: Armen Agop

Venue: Giardini

Among the national pavilions, Egypt became one of the spaces where the artwork ceases to be merely an object of contemplation and becomes a state of being.
The pavilion succeeds in creating an environment in which time slows down to the point of becoming tangible.
The works of Armen Agop exist on the boundary between natural matter, archaeological artifact, and something almost cosmic. Granite here does not appear as a processed material; it retains a sense of primordial existence, as if these forms were not created in the artist’s studio but discovered somewhere between geology and a forgotten civilization that understood geometry in another way.

The project unfolds as a gradual immersion: from a barely perceptible sense of emptiness toward the physical presence of matter, and then toward an almost mystical experience of the invisible. The space does not offer the viewer a clear narrative and does not demand interpretation. It offers something else - to stop.
It is precisely this slowing down that becomes the defining gesture of the pavilion. Here, silence transforms into a form of knowledge: hidden layers begin to emerge, along with the memory of the material, the trace of time, and internal rhythms that usually remain beyond our attention.

Memory in this project is experienced physically through the weight of stone and the emptiness between objects. Granite seems to hold both the geological time of the Earth and the human time of disappearance.
Within the context of In Minor Keys, the Egyptian Pavilion becomes one of the most precise embodiments of the idea of listening to what usually remains unheard and recognizing the almost imperceptible vibrations of existence.
After visiting, what remains is not so much a specific thought or interpretation, but rather a sensation of internal displacement—a rare experience in which art affects not the evaluation of what has been seen, but the very way we inhabit and perceive the world.