“And quite frankly, I am tired. People are tired. We are all tired. The world is tired. Even art itself is tired. Perhaps the time has come. We need something else. We need to heal. We need to laugh. We need to be with beauty, and lots of it. We need to play, we need to be with poetry. We need to be with love again. We need to dance. We need to rest and restore. We need to breathe. We need the radicality of joy. The time has come,” — Koyo Kouoh, read by Rory Tsapayi.
Koyo Kouoh’s theme for the 2026 Venice Biennale, in minor keys, offers a profound and generative framework for processing grief. By naming the exhibition after a musical structure often linked to melancholy, improvisation, and intimacy, Kouoh transforms the concept of minor keys into a larger metaphor for artistic and social resistance. Rather than expressing grief as mere sadness or loss, the theme creates a space for poetic persistence and quiet resilience. It encourages attention to the fragmentary and the fugitive, giving voice to those experiences that remain outside dominant narratives. The exhibition is designed not as spectacle or didactic commentary but as a living, relational force capable of bridging alienation and conflict.
Drawing inspiration from jazz improvisation, Caribbean poetics, and the metaphor of the Creole garden, in minor keys situates artistic practice as both refuge and radical proposition. Minor keys function here as sonic, social, and spatial metaphors for islands of resistance and oases of care. These elements evoke frequencies of beauty that endure despite tragedy, holding grief with complexity and tenderness rather than erasing or simplifying it. The theme invites a slowing down. It calls for a reclamation of time away from the relentless acceleration of contemporary life. It is an allowance for a form of engagement with grief that is neither exhausting nor superficial.
Kouoh’s vision also redefines the role of the artist in moments of crisis, positioning artists as vital interpreters of the social and psychic condition. The exhibition becomes a polyphonous assembly of artworks that convene like a collective jazz improvisation. It proposes an experience that is sensory, transformative, and communal rather than solely intellectual or political. This approach foregrounds tuning in—listening across differences and building connection through shared vulnerability. Grief is presented not as isolation but as a relational condition, one that acknowledges conflict without allowing it to harden into despair.
Ultimately, in minor keys stands as a radical act of care. By presenting art as nourishing and fortifying rather than exhausting, Kouoh offers a space for sustained reflection and emotional endurance. The exhibition embraces complexity and persistence, allowing beauty to emerge through collective attention and poetic resistance. This framework extends beyond an artistic program, providing a meaningful way to hold grief in all its dimensions and a reminder that even in difficult times, there exist frequencies resonant with hope and healing.