The latest announcement: Endre Koronczi will represent Hungary
The 61st Venice Biennale, due to open in April 2026, will be curated by Koyo Kouoh, executive director and chief curator of Zeitz MoCAA in Cape Town. As nations continue to announce which artists will represent their national pavilions, ArtReview is keeping a running tally:
Abbas Akhavan has been selected to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale, the National Gallery of Canada announced. Born in Tehran and based between Montreal and Berlin, Akhavan’s multidisciplinary practice reflects on the geopolitical forces which define spaces. He was the recipient of the Sobey Art Award in 2015, and in November 2026, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis will present a mid-career survey of Akhavan’s work. ‘Abbas’s work is shaped by the unique characteristics of the sites he works on, including the architectures, surrounding economies, and individuals who frequent them,’ National Gallery of Canada director and Canada Pavilion commissioner Jean-François Bélisle said in a statement. ‘We look forward to supporting him in bringing this vision to life at the Canada Pavilion.’
Merike Estna will represent Estonia at the 61st Venice Biennale. Based between Tallinn and Mexico City, Estna’s formalist painting practices uses craft techniques and traditions that have not been historically recognised in the medium. Estna studied painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts (2005) – where she would later be an associate professor at the Department of Painting from 2017–2023 – and then completed her MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London (2009). Estna’s selection was the outcome of an open call by the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art. In a statement, the jury recognised Estna’s work for its ‘maturity and impact’, and highlighted the artist’s ‘insistence on situating painting at the intersection of performance and the social. Her approach shows how traditional media can be re-invented as tools to regenerate a collective trust in art.’
Yto Barrada will exhibit in the French Pavilion. Born in Paris and raised in Tangier, Barrada has, in two decades, gone from being a student of political science at the Sorbonne, as well as her family’s historian and archivist, to a prolific producer of photographs, prints, sculptures, films, artist books and para-institutional projects. The French jury – arranged by the French Institute and chaired by Claire Le Restif, director of the Art Center contemporary of Ivry–Crédac – chose Barrada ‘for her multidisciplinary practice that brings together various artistic and social communities in search of a new utopia’. Writing in ArtReview, Jenny Wu describes how ‘Barrada is like an Oulipo poet: constantly setting up what she calls constraints – I call them structures of support – for freedom in play and education to coalesce.’
Endre Koronczi will represent Hungary at the Venice Biennale, Julia Fabényi, director of the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary art, announced. Born in Budapest in 1968, Koronczi has been a leading figure in Hungarian conceptual art since the 1990s. His exhibition for the Biennale, Pneuma Cosmic curated by Luca Cserhalmi, will expand on his long-term artistic research into the movement of air to present alternative and intuitive ways to connect with our environment.
Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir has been selected to represent Iceland at the 61st Venice Biennale, the Icelandic Art Center has announced. Sigurðardóttir is a poet, composer, filmmaker and visual artist, whose experiential practice explores the boundaries between the conscious and subconscious. After studying at the Iceland University of the Arts, Sigurðardóttir went on to co-found the artist-led gallery Kunstschlager in Reykjavík and the experimental poetry festival Suttungur. She is also the author of five collections of poems. ‘The Venice Biennale is an extraordinary platform that highlights the talent, creativity, and innovation of Icelandic artists, and I am excited to see Ásta’s work showcased on this prestigious global stage,’ the Icelandic Minister of Culture, Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttir said in a statement.
Isabel Nolan will represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale, the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media, Catherine Martin T.D. has announced. She will work alongside Georgina Jackson, Director of The Douglas Hyde Gallery of Contemporary Art, as the curator. One of Ireland’s foremost artists, Nolan explores through her multidisciplinary work the capacity of humans for love, taking in subjects as vast as cosmology, mythology and mortality. ‘Art has a strange and special capacity to make and test powerful kinds of community with shared knowledge and beauty, however temporary,’ Nolan said in a statement. ‘La Biennale di Venezia is a stage like no other.’
Aline Bouvy will represent Luxembourg, Delano reports. The artist, who lives and works between Belgium and Luxembourg, explores – in sculpture, drawing, photography and sound – the relationship between the body and space, and principles of beauty and repulsion. For thirteen years, she worked as a duo the artist John Gillis. Bouvy’s pavilion will be curated by Stilbé Schroeder, and will follow a solo exhibition at Casino Luxembourg in 2025.
Li Yi-Fan has been selected to represent Taiwan, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) has announced. Born in 1989 in Taipei, Li was trained in New Media Art, receiving his MA from the National Taiwan University of Art and his BFA from the National Taiwan Normal University. His video works, often running on game engines, ask questions about how our digital reality reshapes morality and how new ways of communication provide different infrastructure for perceptions and emotional responses. In the past two years, Li’s works have received attention from both the artworld and popular culture, with short film What Is Your Favorite Primitive (2023) both showing at the 13th Taipei Biennial and winning the Golden Harvest Award at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival.
Performance artist Miet Warlop has been selected to represent Belgium, working with curator Caroline Dumalin, it has been announced by the Flemish Minister of Culture Caroline Gennez. IT NEVER SSST was chosen from 21 proposals. Morpho and Kanal-Centre Pompidou will be institutional partners on the project. Warlop presented One Song at the Avignon Festival in 2022, a performance on mourning in which sport was used as a mantra. Chant for Hope premiered at Dhaka Art Summit in 2023, in which performers cast words in plaster moulds, set to music by Micha Volders. For her presentation at the Venice Biennale, Warlop will create a living and musical sculpture to be performed daily, ruminating on ‘the search for human connection in an ever-shifting world’.
Lubaina Himid will represent Great Britain. Born in Zanzibar in 1954, Himid moved to the UK when she was a few months old. A pioneer of the Black British Art Movement, Himid curated significant exhibitions in the 1980s and 1990s including Five Black Women at the Africa Centre in 1983, and The Thin Black Line at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1985, both of which focused on the work of Black female artists. In her work she makes use of storytelling practices and historical research to challenge dominant Eurocentric narratives, exploring themes of race, cultural memory and identity. Trained in theatre design, she often combines painting with sound and sculptural installation as a means of enacting social critique, working with a diversity of materials, narratives and formats. Himid was awarded the Turner Prize in 2017, and is currently Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire.
Jenna Sutela will represent Finland. The Berlin-based Finnish artist is interested in biological and computational processes, from the human microbiome and planetary ecosystems to language and code. Her sculptures, installations and sound pieces, often made in collaboration with scientists, frequently include chance elements and evolving structures. In 2019 she launched an app offering divinatory readings based on the shapes live streamed from a series of of custom made head-shaped lava lamps. Her pavilion will be curated by Stefanie Hessler, the director of the Swiss Institute in New York.
