Some already seen and many surprises at Biennial “of discord”or to 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. The 2026 edition has been (at least until now) dominated by one clash at times very heated, born from the decision to open the event also to Russian artists. But leaving aside controversies or personal beliefs, the edition reserves quite a few surprises. So here is a list of five pavilions (plus one) not to be missed.
RUSSIA (Gardens)
After the controversies that preceded the opening of the gates, it is impossible to skip the pavilion that led the president of the Foundation to a tug of war Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and the minister of culture Alessandro Giuli. The Pavilion will remain open only on the days of preview dedicated to the press and professionals and will close to the public from 9 May to 22 November showing only on some giant screens the recordings of the performance made in the days preceding the actual opening entitled The Tree is Routed in the Sky.
Inside, a packed program of performances will be staged during these pre-opening days music and songs and arrangements with plants and flowers to demonstrate that, as written in the captions of the works, “the flowers no longer smell”. The works focus on a reflection on the difficult man-nature relationship with the denunciation of the rules of the market which subjects plants and flowers to long journeys from the plantations of Ecuador or Kenya and complex treatments and selections to guarantee a longer life.
BELGIUM (Gardens)
It is one of the pavilions that certainly leaves the greatest impression, one “living and sound sculpture” made of deafening drumstribal rhythms, songs and dances of performers who exchange and arrange terracotta signs (large but very fragile) with words with a strong evocative value such as “if”, “will”, “you”. A reflection on the frenetic pace, fragility and resistance of everyday life.
ITALY (Arsenale)
It’s called “With you with everything” the exhibition project of Chiara Camoni edited by Cecilia Canziani. A concept that is one “call to rally”an invitation to build a different way of being in the world through meeting and sharing sharing with other forms of lifeleaving space for wonder, for feeling, for dialogue, for contemplation, for the flow of time that transforms everything. The entire pavilion is populated with works created specifically for the exhibition and existing works, according to one combinatorial practiceof reuse and re-semantization, already used by the artist and suggested by the very nature of his works. Recycled plasticswaste from industrial processes, found objects, everything acquires a new meaning in describing the contemporary landscape, inviting us to recognize beauty even in waste.
JAPAN (Gardens)
A forest of diapers, bottles, strollers, dolls and toys. Ei Arakawa-Nashtogether with the curators Lisa Horikawa and Mizuki Takahashi, reflects on being a parent and through this also on the future itself (of humanity and society). Here the public is called to participate activelyto the point of carrying out an intimate and concrete act such as changing the diapers of some dolls. A gesture that becomes ritual and that, through a QR codegives each participant a unique poem, linked to dates that intertwine the “date of birth” of each doll with historical events of the twentieth century.
LEBANON (Arsenal)
Palm trees and starfish transformed into fractal shapesminiaturized and repeated endlessly to the point of becoming baroque abstract figures. Nabil Nahas presents enormous paintings where the patterns of the trees of his childhood in Beirut meet the Islamic geometry and the abstract expressionism of New York in the 1970s where he was trained. “Don’t Get Me Wrong” it is also interesting for its size: a long installation 45 meters composed of 26 panels of three meters each that form an enveloping frame that invites you to move inside.
HOLY SEE (Various locations)
This year too the Holy See Pavilion confirms itself as one of the most interesting and we consider it the sixth pavilion to be recommended because it is outside the two classic exhibition venues. Located at the Mystical Garden of the Discalced Carmelites and the Complex of Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, it invites contemporary artists, musicians and poets to engage with visionary texts and songs. Works by Brian Eno, Patti Smith, Meredith Monk o Caterina Barbieri. A dimension that privileges listening, silence and slow enjoyment. In perfect harmony with the concept of the 61st edition entitled “In minor keys”in tono minore.