bilingual blog bilingue de la curiosité: african art

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Friday, August 28, 2026

In Minor Keys? That's not the music I heard.

This is not a very serious survey of the Venice Biennale of 2026, yet some of the points I make are important to me. Now you're warned. - Also blogspot is an old platform and I've been here for many years: its formatting is a bit problematic!

In my opinion, the title for the 2026 Biennale In Minor Keys** is a bit of a joke for this show.

Opinion*, because this is what this text is about. I'm not sure about anything except what my reaction is. No one knows, not even critics with a PhD in Art History. Everyone can look at art and have a valid reaction to art.

The exhibition was conceived and curated by Koyo Kouoh, who died unexpectedly in 2025 from liver cancer, before she could see it open. The Biennale decided to realize the exhibition according to her vision, including the artists, works and overall curatorial project.

I was impressed by the strong curatorial direction to the Biennale. I could tell they were very personal choices, yet the personality of the curator was not intrusive.

But to me, it's anything but minor keys. It's spectacular. Impressive. Beautiful. Striking. Intriguing. It has a lot of "wow" factor. Many of the works come from Africa, and many, whether African or not, offer a profusion of images. A lot of African art is highly stylized. In fact it hugely influenced 20th century contemporary art, allowing to get rid of the overwrought styles of the 19th century Western art. The curator went for complexity and exuberance.

Africa seems to be in creative effervescence: literature, music, cinema, visual arts. Maybe it always was but we didn't know. It's the moment for Africa right now internationally: a long history of beautiful art and lots to say from being the most direly exploited continent by capitalist forces.

The blue walls give the work the magical quality of the night: glamorous, mysterious, unexpected.

Many of the works are intricate, convoluted, bizarre. That's what the world is like. Human emotions are complicated when not contradictory. Nature is complicated. Economy is complicated. Politics are complicated.

Fascists try to tell us things are simple: you're hurting financially? It's the fault of the immigrants that take away our jobs! Your energy and food are more expensive? It's the fault of the environmentalists!

In this sense, this Biennale is a great antidote to the veering of the world toward the far right.

110 artists participated but it feels like there are less in this Biennale than in others because some of the artists are represented by many works. I enjoyed that an artist's work might be in more than one room.

The juxtaposition with other works brings out different qualities in a particular artist's art. I found that I appreciated an artist's work in one room, after having been left indifferent by that same artist's work in another room's juxtaposition.

I realized that I like to marvel when I see art. I'm not saying that's a particularly appropriate way to approach art, to criticize, to curate. Everyone is different in their approach to art, and that's one of the beauties of our humanity.

Some people might want to be stimulated intellectually: think conceptual art. Others are looking to be impressed by skills and techniques: think oil painting and sculpture. Others look for narrative, and they find it in figurative art. Other prefer subtlety and understatement rather than big and powerful.

I prefer to look at art like a four year old sitting at the circus for the first time. I like the spectacular, the dramatic, the stunning effects. And there is plenty of that in this Biennale.

I like large works, and many were offered, it gets monumental when people are represented larger than in life, and then arises the question of a monument to what? And very small can be dramatic too.

So I am renaming the Biennale. And I'm not going to look for something smart along the lines of "Personal Structures" or "The Exchange Value" or "Memory For The Future" but here are some:

Wait Until You See This!

If This Doesn't Blow You Away, Nothing Will!
The Bold and The Beautiful.

I Prefer Art That Is Strong, Daring, Exciting, Powerful, Dazzling. How About You?

The Big Exhibit With Big Art for Big Hearts And Big Minds.

A few years ago, exhibit titles had to be long, at least one sentence, such as It Doesn't Have To Make Sense. A great title - not that long even - for a show by Amoako Boafo, but now the trend for titles is back to being short. This Argentinian artist also didn't catch the trend, and just as well that not all artists & curators follow the same trend.

First I went to the Giardini, enjoyed it thoroughly though I did skip some pavilions, and that include the Russian Pavilion. I would have also skpped the Israeli pavilion and it seemed closed.

Then I went to the Arsenale. And I did get a bit numb from the art after a few rooms. This is the pieces where I felt I had seen something like it before, and had no reaction to it:

I spoke with a German man at the restaurant. I asked him how he liked The Biennale. He said: It's too much. I asked: Is it too much art (it is) or is the art too much? He said the art was too much. I understood what he meant.

The pavilions at the Arsenale ended up being a relief from the main show. I enjoyed the Italian pavilion, the Indian one, and one I didn't identify that seemed to be a large landscape made out of salt and ashes.
But I always get numb by the end of the Arsenale. My mind, my psyche, whatever it is, stops taking in the art, it refuses to wrap itself around a new perspective, a new process, a new creativity.

Nota bene: An untold theme of the Biennale is its challenge to the visitors to find the bathrooms. They're few bathrooms, they're few stalls, and they certainly don't put them on their map. Also, once you're in the Arsenale it's very difficult to find an exit. Typically you have to go through exhibits that you've already taken in, adding to the saturation.

By that time, I was reconsidering contemporary art. Maybe it should be just really different, fill in simple needs, answer simple quesions. Does it have to be so esoteric? So unclear? So complex (wait, I'm contradicting what I said above)? So challenging? So provocative? Then I run into this video, and it's so simple, yet not fascistic at all: It shows the pure joy of people of modest means as they have a day of leisure. It's so beautiful. So needed.

I hope my reaction is of interest to other people, whether they have visited the Biennale and want to compare notes, or have not visited and want to have an idea what it's about.

Also here's an art installation for our enjoyment, that has something contemporary in its randomness:

*Opinion:a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular mattera belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge

A minor key;**a minor key is a tonal system based on a minor scale. It uses a specific set of seven notes that generally create a darker, sad, or melancholy sound compared to a major key.

I really apologize that I can't name the works and the artists, I am on vacation, and it was too much organization for a leisurely stay. After the Biennale, I went to eat bacalà with cuttlefish-inked polenta that was blacker than the night.

Some of the artists whose works figure below.
Khaled Sabsabi Pauline Oliveros Kaloki Nyamai Tammy Nguyen Manuel Mathieu Issa Samb Josephine Alacu Kambui Olijimi Daniel Lind-Ramos Ebony G. Patterson

And here's an installation by Nature, the great artist: