Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh has been appointed as the curator for the 61st edition of the Venice Biennale in 2026, marking her as the first African woman to hold this prestigious role. The organization made the announcement on December 3. Since May 2019, Kouoh has been the executive director and chief curator at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa, a major contemporary art museum on the continent. Her leadership there has seen exhibitions focusing on African and diasporic artists such as Otobong Nkanga, Mary Evans, and Tracey Rose.
Prior to her current position, Kouoh founded and served as the artistic director of RAW Material Company in Dakar from 2008. This space functions as an artist residency, exhibition venue, and experimental study academy. She also significantly contributed to the establishment of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, leading its curation for eight consecutive editions since its inception in 2013. Kouoh curated the 37th EVA International, Ireland’s biennial of contemporary art, in 2016 with an exhibition titled Still (the) Barbarians, which highlighted post-colonial themes and the lasting effects of colonialism.
In addition to her curatorial roles, Kouoh has authored several books on art criticism and history, focusing on pan-African and Black art. Her works include ‘Word! Word? Word!: Issa Samb and the Undecipherable Form’ (2013) and ‘When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting’ (2022), which accompanied a related exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA. Expressing her excitement, Kouoh described her appointment to lead the Venice Biennale as a “once-in-a-lifetime honor and privilege.” She emphasized the vital role of artists as visionaries and social scientists.
The Venice Biennale, established in 1895, holds the title of the world’s oldest contemporary art exhibition. Attendance reached a high in 2022 with over 800,000 visitors, and this year’s edition, organized by Brazilian museum director Adriano Pedrosa, also attracted nearly 700,000 attendees. Throughout its long history, the Biennale has had only one other African-born artistic director, the late Nigerian curator Okwui Enwezor, who curated the event in 2015. The Biennale’s President, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, praised Kouoh’s appointment as a recognition of her expansive vision.
