Venice Biennale Names Koyo Kouoh as Next Curator

Koyo Kouoh, one of Africa’s pre-eminent curators, will oversee the 61st edition of the Venice Biennale, the organizers of the world’s longest-running contemporary art exhibition announced on Tuesday.

Kouoh, who was born in Cameroon, is currently the chief curator and executive director of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, known as Zeitz MOCAA.

In a telephone interview from Miami, where she is attending the Art Basel fair, Kouoh, 56, said she was “ecstatic” about the appointment.

She wants to create a show that “really speaks to our times,” she said, “and particularly speaks to where we want to go.” Although she already had “multiple ideas” about what the exhibition could look like, Kouoh said she was an “artist-centered curator” who would be guided by conversations with the show’s exhibitors.

“The artists will define where we go,” she said.

First held in 1895, the Biennale is one of the art world’s most important events. It includes a large-scale group show, organized by the curator, and dozens of national pavilions, which participating countries stage independently.

This year’s edition, whose main exhibition was overseen by the Brazilian museum director Adriano Pedrosa, attracted almost 700,000 visitors before it closed last month. But Pedrosa’s show, which drew attention to overlooked queer and Indigenous artists, received mixed reviews.