An exhibition devoted to minor tonalities as a space of listeningand inner resonance: In Minor Keys unfolds as a journey of attunement and renewal.
The words of the text written by Koyo Kouoh, the first Africancurator of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, who passed away prematurely on 10 May 2025, stir a profound emotion. In Minor Keys is the title she chose for the exhibition which, with the full support of her family, La Biennale di Venezia has resolved to carry forward, adhering faithfully to the project she conceived, in order to safeguard, enhance, and make her ideas and the work she pursued with extraordinary dedicationaccessible as widely as possible. The Exhibition, open to the public from 9 May to 22 November 2026, is realised with the contribution of the team selected by Kouoh herself: Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Hélène Pereira and Rasha Salti (advisors); Siddhartha Mitter (editor-in-chief); Rory Tsapayi(research assistant).
In her curatorial statement, Kouoh elucidates the meaning of the title: “Minor keys are also minor islands: worlds amidst oceans, with distinct and infinitely rich ecosystems, complex social lives— for better and for worse — within far vaster political structures, and with ecological stakes of great consequence. In this context, the evocation of tonality and island extends to an archipelago of oases: gardens, courtyards, residences, lofts, dance floors — the other worlds created by artists, intimate and convivial universesthat regenerate and sustain us even in the darkest of times; indeed, especially in the darkest of times.”
With 111 participants — artists, duos, collectives, and organisations — the conceptual nucleus of the Exhibition unfoldsaround motifs selected from works capable of engaging both soul and intellect. The interweaving of these motifs gives rise to a composition that does not proceed by sections, but by “subterranean priorities.” In the course of the curatorial process, many suggestions found resonance in the literary referencesKouoh shared as sources of inspiration, among them Beloved by Toni Morrison and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, united by their traversal of worlds and temporalthresholds and by a magical realism capable of intensifying the emotional register.
