Observer
  • Business
  • Art
  • Lifestyle
Newsletters
  • Business
    • Finance
    • Media
    • Technology
    • Policy
    • Wealth
    • Insights
    • Interviews
  • Art
    • Art Fairs
    • Art Market
    • Art Reviews
    • Auctions
    • Galleries
    • Museums
    • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
    • Nightlife & Dining
    • Style
    • Travel
    • Interviews
  • Power Lists
    • Nightlife & Dining
    • Art
    • A.I.
    • PR
  • About
    • About Observer
    • Advertise With Us
    • Reprints
Newsletters

Venice Biennale

A red-walled gallery with a large chandelier contains long wooden display tables covered with books and papers, while framed drawings and texts line the far wall.

The Venice Biennale and Central Asia’s Rise in the Global Art World

The recent rise of the region in the international art world has been driven, in part, by a concentrated wave of institution-building, biennials, cultural diplomacy and private patronage, with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan leading the charge.
By Elisa Carollo
A woman in a black dress and headphones walks down a concrete path covered by a metal arbor

One Fine Show: The Holy See’s “The Ear is the Eye of the Soul” at Giardino Mistico

The exhibition is a sonic prayer organized around Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), presented by the Holy See and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers.
By Dan Duray
61st Biennale Art 2026

What the Venice Biennale Reveals About the West’s Cultural Confidence

In a multipolar society where guilt is increasingly mistaken for depth and messaging for meaning, Arbra Partners founder Lucas Bitencourt argues that the power of the curator has displaced that of the artist and warns of a coming crisis of creative imagination.
By Lucas Bitencourt
An exterior installation view shows a multicolored carpet flowing out of a doorway onto a stone courtyard in front of a weathered building façade with barred windows.

Faig Ahmed Weaves Azerbaijan’s Past Into Its Future in Venice

By Elisa Carollo
A dim installation space shows a red-framed window set into a brick wall, with small hanging lights casting shadow patterns across the floor and walls.

Kingsley Ng and Angel Hui’s “Fermata” Brings the Rhythms of Hong Kong to Venice

By Elisa Carollo
Jasper John, Three Flags, 1958.

Why People Still Get Worked Up About Jasper Johns’s ‘Flag’ Painting

By Jordan Riefe
A white furry sculptural figure with raised arms appears to crawl or float across a bright blue installation space.

In the Icelandic Pavilion, Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir’s Mythmaking Takes Its Most Fluid Form

By Elisa Carollo
An installation view of Alicja Kwade’s "INFRASUPRA" shows a dim underground space at FOROF with a suspended stone hovering above a dark circular form on the floor, illuminated by a small bright light.

Where to Find the Best Contemporary Art in Rome Right Now

By Elisa Carollo
An installation view shows translucent circular panels wrapping through the Korean Pavilion, with sculptural stations placed throughout the sunlit wooden interior.

In the Korean Pavilion, Nation-Building Is an Open and Ongoing Process

By Elisa Carollo
A spacious gallery installation with suspended vertical wires, colorful curved glass panels arranged across the floor, and large wall-mounted glass works.

Su Xiaobai’s Meditative Material Practice Is the Focus of One of the Biennale’s Most Commanding Shows

By Elisa Carollo
A portrait photograph shows Manuel Mathieu standing in front of a large abstract painting with purple, orange and white forms, framed by hanging strips of textured material.

Manuel Mathieu’s Venice Biennale Debut Asks How We Carry the Past

By Elise Morton
An ornate museum gallery with dark curtains, glass cabinets and classical busts displays several white pillow-like sculptural figures positioned across the floor.

Erwin Wurm Transforms the Fortuny Museum into a Theater of the Absurd

By Elisa Carollo
An indoor garden installation fills a gallery with soil, rocks, trees and plants.

Global Art Biennials: Renovation, Revelation—or Repetition?

By Paco Barragán
Paintings and sculptural busts by Edouard Duval-Carrié are displayed against vivid blue walls in an installation exploring Haitian vodou cosmologies and colonial history at the Venice Biennale.

Koyo Kouoh’s Venice Biennale Looks to Ancient Wisdom to Mend a Fractured Present

By Elisa Carollo
A group of tall clay and organic sculptures resembling human figures stand in a dimly lit formation inside Chiara Camoni’s Italian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale.

The Venice Biennale’s Most Powerful Pavilions Tune into Shared Consciousness

By Elisa Carollo
A close-up of a widescreen monitor embedded in gray panels shows a black-and-white image of a hand, with a small metal cart positioned to the left against the installation.

The Philippines Pavilion Turns the Country’s Maritime History into an Archive of Universal Longing

By Elisa Carollo

LAS Art Foundation Pushes Quantum Art Forward in a New Venice Commission

By Elisa Carollo

In the Polish Pavilion, “Liquid Tongues” Rewrites Our Hierarchy of the Senses

By Elisa Carollo
An older woman sits at a table painting a geometric pattern on fabric while a small monkey stands on her arm, with a large patterned textile hanging behind her.

Sara Flores On Bringing Shipibo-Konibo Cosmology to Peru’s Venice Pavilion

By Elisa Carollo
A bald, bearded man in a black jacket sits on a couch designed like oversized Ionic column capitals, posed in a living room with bookshelves behind him.

In Venice, Andreas Angelidakis Is Queering the Idea of a National Pavilion

By Sarah Moroz
A portrait of a woman artist seated in her studio, surrounded by paint tubes and brushes, with two of her paintings visible behind her—one a monochrome seascape and the other a surreal composition of headless figures with floating fruit.

As Venice Nears, Arch Hades Traces Her Shift from Verse to Visuals

By Aisling O'Leary
Artists and curator pose together outdoors against a brick and stone wall

India Returns to Venice With a Pavilion Rooted in Memories of Home

By Elisa Carollo
Exterior of a building covered by a colorful wall painting

The Venice Biennale Announces 111 Artists for Its 2026 Edition, Koyo Kouoh’s “In Minor Keys”

By Elisa Carollo
A side-by-side pairing of an abstract painting on the left with organic, almost human lines and a terra cotta statue of a curvy human on the right

Adrian Parr Zaretsky’s Intimate Response to an Unthinkable World

By Christa Terry
More
  • ART
  • BUSINESS
  • LIFESTYLE
  • POWER LISTS
  • INTERVIEWS
  • ABOUT
  • ADVERTISE
  • CONTACT
  • NEWSLETTERS
  • RSS FEEDS
  • SITEMAP
  • TERMS
  • PRIVACY
  • REPRINTS
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Cookie Settings
  • Do not sell my data
Powered by WordPress VIP

We noticed you're using an ad blocker.

We get it: you like to have control of your own internet experience.
But advertising revenue helps support our journalism.

To read our full stories, please turn off your ad blocker.
We'd really appreciate it.

How Do I Whitelist Observer?

How Do I Whitelist Observer?

Below are steps you can take in order to whitelist Observer.com on your browser:

For Adblock:

Click the AdBlock button on your browser and select Don't run on pages on this domain.

For Adblock Plus on Google Chrome:

Click the AdBlock Plus button on your browser and select Enabled on this site.

For Adblock Plus on Firefox:

Click the AdBlock Plus button on your browser and select Disable on Observer.com.

Then Reload the Page