Female nudity and stinky art: key takeaways from the 2026 Venice Biennale | Venice Biennale 2026

1. Female nudity was everywhere

Austria and their naked speedboat riders, the Danes and their porn stars who worry about men’s sperm counts, and pictures of Richard Prince’s girlfriends taken from old biker magazines. Some of the women who saw the movie didn’t like it very much – or at least wondered where all the men were. Feminist activist group Femen’s participation with Pussy Riot also included their topless protest.

2. How do you deal with Russia?

The presence of Russians at the Biennale for the first time since the country’s war with Ukraine was an inevitable talking point. On the first day, loud music blared from the pavilion and several boxes of prosecco sat outside before being carried to the party crowds. Pussy Riot responded by appearing in front of the pavilion on the second day, playing a song called “Disobey” – forcing them to temporarily close their doors while police removed them.

The British response was typically less direct. At the launch of Lubina Hamid’s work, a representative of the ambassador said that a government minister would not come due to Russian interference. The government eventually confirmed this to be the case, adding that the UK “strongly opposes Russia’s participation in the Venice Biennale.”

3. Struggling attempts to avoid “woke” work resulted in terrible art

Not everyone loved the former American Pavilion from 2024 designed by Geoffrey Gibson, but it was certainly lively with its rainbow colors, regular Native American performances and dances, and very eerie atmosphere. Contrast this with Alma Allen’s pavilion in the United States, where his “as-yet-untitled” sculptures were devoid of meaning or aesthetic pleasure, looking like something you might see joylessly scattered in a hotel lobby.

4. Venice rules the seas

Florentina Holzinger’s human bell ringer was the main attraction Giardini With the Austrian Pavilion attracting huge crowds that watched the choreographer’s SeaWorld Venice show. The actors climbed weather vanes, rode in circles on jet skis, and were immersed in a tank for four hours. Nautical themes were a key part of many of the pavilions: Israel, Uzbekistan and Canada all used water or connections to the sea to shape the work within them.

5. Art that stinks the place

Smelly art is all the rage. At the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in San Polo, the site of the Belarusian pavilion, perfumers created what was described as the scent of “a freshly dug grave in the Belarusian countryside in late August, decorated with rotting flowers.” Lydia Ouraman’s exhibition at the Fondation Nicoletta Fiorucci was fragrant with boiling onion and celery broth.

As for the Syrian pavilion – inside a copy of the tower of an ancient, destroyed cemetery in Palmyra – it worked with perfume makers from the country, and there were many scents and perfumes in the Egyptian and German pavilions as well. Fortunately, the scent did not form part of Alain Bovey’s fecal pavilion in Luxembourg, titled La Merde; Nor did the Austrian pavilion, in which urine, toilets and sewage leaks played a big role.

6. Outstanding off-site

The absence of work related to technology, AI or even video work was evident in the headline show In Minor Keys. Instead, much of the artwork on display was, as directed by Koh, simple and reflective. But two of the best-received works were videos found outside the biennale’s main site.

The final part of the trilogy of works that began at the 2022 event was found at the Fondazione In Between Art Film, which included eight new video commissions. Canicula included the likes of Turner Prize winner Lawrence Abu Hamdan, who researched the “sonic weapons” allegedly used against protesters in Serbia. Gabrielle Goliath’s multi-screen video work, Elegy, was another off-site standout that many thought would add some heft to the main show.

Elsewhere, Arthur Java performed some of his greatest hits in his joint show with Richard Prince at the Prada Foundation, including his album Love is the message, the message is Death which – 10 years later – still stops you in your tracks.

7. The conspicuous absence of Kuyo Koh

It is very difficult when the main curator dies while curating the group show. Koh died suddenly of liver cancer about a year before the work, and her team of five decided to pick up the baton and format it according to her instructions. But there was an air of unfinished business about the resulting group show – it really felt like the vision she really had was only emerging intermittently.