The Most Important Art Biennials of 2026

There is broad consensus across the art world that since the early 2000s, there has been a global proliferation of biennials—the so-called biennialization of contemporary art—largely driven by local governments and tourism agencies discovering the potential of these large-scale exhibitions to activate entire local economies. Yet this expansion has also prompted growing criticism, with detractors questioning how much biennials truly give back not only to the art system but, crucially, to the communities in which they operate.

Local engagement is a foundational element in building the cultural capabilities that site-specific, art-led development can generate—often creating longer-term opportunities than strategies narrowly focused on international tourism. Too often, however, these events risk weakening ties with the very territories and communities they claim to elevate. A recent article in the Straits Times even questioned whether it might be time to shut down the Singapore Biennale altogether, describing it as “disconnected from the community, and inaccessible to even determined artsgoers.”

At the heart of this debate lies a question that biennials share with all cultural institutions: Who is the audience? In response, many of the most successful recent editions have shifted focus toward the specific contexts—historical, cultural and social—in which they unfold, prioritizing the involvement of local artists alongside deeper community engagement. In these cases, public programming is often central, not secondary.

“I realized the best way to do that was to understand the city and to do something meaningful for its reality,” curator Pedro Alonzo told Observer after the opening of the Boston Triennial. Accessibility and relatability, he suggested, are essential for a biennial to function and resonate first within the communities whose spaces it occupies. “The goal isn’t to produce a Swiss exhibition; that doesn’t work here. The goal is to create something that matches the soul and the conditions of this place, and that’s the connection I’m trying to make,” echoed Nikhil Chopra, curator of the recently opened Kochi Biennale. Rather than constantly crossing the globe, Chopra spent extended time traveling across India, visiting studios in different regions and engaging closely with emerging practices, while keeping accessibility at the forefront for a biennial where roughly 80 percent of the audience is local.

While every biennial is different, superstar biennials curator Hoor Al Qasimi told Observer, their impact on the host city and its local communities is essential. “A biennial has to engage with the city. It can’t be isolated,” she said. “The exciting ones are the ones that venture into public spaces, engage with people and develop as collaborative processes.”

If 2025 saw an especially crowded biennial calendar—with some events struggling to meet this fundamental premise—the arrival of a new year marks the return of major institutional biennials, including the historical and most influential Venice Biennale, alongside region-defining editions such as the Carnegie International and the Whitney Biennial. Here are the biennials not to miss in 2026.

• The Venice Biennale, “In Minor Keys”
• The Biennale of Sydney, “Rememory”
• The Whitney Biennial
• The 59th Carnegie International
• The Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale
• The 16th Gwangju Biennale
• The Bronx Museum’s 7th AIM Biennial
• Manifesta 16
• The 18th Biennale de Lyon
• All the other Biennials and Triennials in 2026

The Venice Biennale, “In Minor Keys”

• May 9 – November 22, 2026
• Arsenale and Giardini, Venice

The 61st Venice Biennale will be the first edition to be held in the wake of a curator’s death before its opening. Titled “In Minor Keys,” the 2026 edition—conceived by South African curator Koyo Kouoh, who died in May 2025—promises a presentation designed to foster more attentive and intimate encounters with art and with the humans behind these artistic expressions. Envisioned as a kind of laboratory for retraining the empathy society appears to have lost, particularly in these turbulent times, the exhibition seeks to create spaces for listening, contemplation, exchange and understanding.

By staging introspective and deliberately scaled moments, Kouoh’s Biennale aims to counter the overwhelming and disorienting oversaturation of information—and disinformation—that has already marked the opening days of 2026. Fully aware of the Biennale’s role as “the centre of gravity for art for over a century,” in her own words, the exhibition is “a polyphonous assembly of art… convening and communing in convivial collectivity, beaming across the void of alienation and the crackle of conflict.”

The exhibition will be completed in strict accordance with the plan Kouoh developed with her team, which includes curators Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helena Pereira and Rasha Salti, critic and editor-in-chief Siddhartha Mitter, and assistant Rory Tsapayi. A full list of participating artists is expected to be announced later in February. In the meantime, many national pavilions have already revealed their representatives—not without controversy, as seen in the political debate surrounding the Australian Pavilion, which was forced to reinstate the previously dropped Lebanese-Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, the recent cancellation of Gabrielle Goliath’s
Gaza at the South Africa Pavilion, and the turbulence around the U.S. Pavilion, which ultimately concluded with the last-minute nomination of Mexico-based sculptor Alma Allen.

The Biennale of Sydney, “Rememory”

• March 14 – June 14, 2026
• White Bay Power Station and other locations in Sydney

The unstoppable Hoor Al Qasimi is curating the upcoming 25th Biennale of Sydney, following her widely acclaimed curation of the most recent Aichi Triennial and overseeing, as president and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, the 2025 Sharjah Biennial. Titled “Rememory,” the 2026 Biennale of Sydney will explore the intersection of memory and history, remembering and forgetting, as recollection becomes an act of reassembling fragments of the past—often erased or dismissed—whether personal, familial or collective.

At the center of the biennial is an exercise in unearthing and highlighting marginalized narratives, sharing untold stories and encouraging reflection on how memory shapes identity and belonging. The exhibition aims to enhance recognition and understanding of the histories and connections that define the contexts and foundations of community. At its core is a quote by American writer Toni Morrison, which speaks directly to the need to contemplate histories and memories that have been sidelined, positioning them as possible counter-narratives to dominant accounts.
Since its founding in 1973, the Biennale of Sydney has maintained a dual commitment: engaging Australia with the world while playing a meaningful role in the life of the nation. In this spirit, the 2026 edition will bring together international artists alongside practitioners based in Australia for a collective exercise in reflection—on their own roots and on Sydney itself, its surrounding communities and layered histories.

This process of listening and retelling collective histories will unfold through works that revisit and reinterpret past events, tracing patterns that repeat and endure across time. Themes of migration, exile and belonging will be central, giving voice to stories from Aboriginal communities as well as the diverse diasporas that continue to shape Australia today.

The Whitney Biennial

• Opening March 8, 2026
• Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Biennial has long been considered not only a defining event for contemporary American art but also a temperature check for the country’s cultural climate. Co-directed by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, the 82nd Whitney Biennial is expected to take a softer, less confrontational turn. But that shift is not a retreat from politics; it’s already more apparent in the artist selection than in the curatorial concept itself.

Described by the curators as “a vivid atmospheric survey of contemporary American art shaped by a moment of profound transition,” the exhibition centers on what they call “forms of relationality,” encompassing human relationships, geopolitical entanglements and increasingly hybrid or non-human perspectives. Rather than putting forward a singular thesis, the Biennial will foreground mood and texture, inviting visitors into environments marked by tension, tenderness, humor and unease—while suggesting more conciliatory possibilities for coexistence within the social, natural and technological infrastructures that shape contemporary life.
Still, the exhibition—shaped through more than 300 studio visits across the U.S. and abroad—already reflects a deliberately expanded notion of American art. The intergenerational and international list of 56 artists is deeply informed by migration, diaspora and the long reach of U.S. power.

The 59th Carnegie International

• May 2, 2026 – January 3, 2027
• Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

As the longest-running exhibition of international art in North America, the Carnegie International has long served as a key moment in defining the state of contemporary art in the U.S. Yet its 59th edition aims to engage with a much broader notion of American art, embracing the multicultural and inevitably cosmopolitan dimensions of its identity—reflecting the globally interlaced reach of the country’s power and influence.

While the full list of artists will be announced in February, the names released so far already point to an international roster, with many artists based outside the U.S., including Aria Farid, Abraham González Pacheco, Arturo Kameya and Claudia Martínez Garay, Sanchayan Ghosh, Eric Gyamfi and Cinthia Marcelle, among others.

Curated by Ryan Inouye, Danielle A. Jackson and Liz Park—the Kathe and Jim Patrinos Curators of the 2026 Carnegie International—the exhibition maintains a clear focus on local engagement despite its global scope. The curators plan to transform the museum’s programs and spaces in imaginative ways while collaborating with partner institutions across Pittsburgh’s North Side and Hill District.

The curators described the exhibition as a collective attempt to re-imagine the 20th-century museum. “While organizing this exhibition,” they stated, “we have been thinking about ways of being in practice with art—the transmission of social, political and cultural knowledges, the energy and movement, which all unfold within kindred orders. In meetings with artists, we have found inspiration in artistic languages that affirm existence as a political condition and that share the experience of the geographies we traverse as vast, complex and dynamic.”

The Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale

• January 30 – May 2, 2026
• Diriyah and Ryahd, Saudi Arabia

Established in 2021, the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale has quickly emerged as a top-tier global platform for contemporary art in Saudi Arabia—even as the Kingdom is only now beginning to expand its broader cultural ecosystem. This growth has been driven by local powerhouses such as ATHR Gallery, alongside Sotheby’s, which recently staged its first full-scale auctions in the Kingdom after years of charity sales that helped lay the groundwork.

Led by artistic directors Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed, the 2026 edition—titled In Interludes and Transitions (في الحِلّ والترحال)—will unfold across the JAX District in historic Diriyah, near Riyadh. The exhibition will feature work by more than 70 local and international artists, including over 20 new commissions created specifically for the Biennale, many developed in direct response to the site and its context. At its core is the idea of passage and transition, long central to the nomadic cultures of the region and newly resonant within a contemporary global society defined by constant movement and change.

Drawing its title from a colloquial phrase evoking cycles of encampment and journey among nomadic communities in the Arabian Peninsula, this edition emphasizes the potential for connection and continuity even within states of flux. It invites a rethinking of the world in motion as an organic procession—entangling human experience with planetary, multispecies, spiritual and technological currents.
The international roster includes established figures such as Pio Abad, Petrit Halilaj, Gala Porras-Kim and Théo Mercier, alongside rising and prominent voices from the region, including Ahaad Alamoudi, Afra Al Dhaheri and Mohammed Alhamdan.

The 16th Gwangju Biennale

• September – November, 2026
• Gwangju, South Korea

Considered Asia’s leading contemporary art biennial, the Gwangju Biennale returns in 2026 under the direction of Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen, acclaimed for his incisive explorations of Asian modernity. While many details—including the final curatorial concept and title—will be released in the coming months, his proposal centers on “the transformative power of art” as an imaginative and much-needed force in a time of global uncertainty.

As Tzu Nyen noted in his statement, this edition will bring together the energies, propositions, practices and ideas that have inspired and propelled his own work over the past two decades. “It will be an opportunity to explore how the practice of artistic transformation resonates with Gwangju’s legacy of democratic change,” he said, referencing the Biennale’s historical ties to the 1980 uprising that helped catalyze the end of South Korea’s military dictatorship. “Rather than delivering a single message, this Biennale will seek to generate propositions for change that are shared and shaped by all of us.”

Tzu Nyen, who represented Singapore at the Venice Biennale in 2011, is known for a practice that moves fluidly across film, video installation, sound and research-driven projects, examining how history, myth and power are constructed, transmitted and destabilized.

The Bronx Museum’s 7th AIM Biennial

• January 23 – June 29, 2026
• Bronx Museum, New York

Now in its seventh edition, the AIM Biennial has become a key talent-watching moment for artists rising in the New York area. Curated by Patrick Rowe, associate director of education and public engagement at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, alongside Nell Klugman, the exhibition spotlights the two most recent cohorts of the museum’s AIM Fellowship program, which for 45 years has supported emerging artists through a year-long seminar designed to help them develop and sustain their careers.

Titled Forms of Connection, the 2026 edition brings together 28 artists confronting rising social fracture and proposing renewed frameworks for relation, connection and collective responsibility. Among them, performance artist Asia Stewart (AIM 2024) examines the legacy of empire in a video work depicting herself shredding a U.S. flag; artist and educator Piero Penizzotto (AIM 2025) explores the intricacy of community bonds through life-sized papier-mâché figures modeled after his students and colleagues; Cyle Warner (AIM 2025) presents a large-scale woven breeze-block tapestry that extends Caribbean traditions of decorative concrete into an architecture of memory; and through sculpture, Katie Chin (AIM 2025) draws on histories of labor strikes and acts of sabotage, inviting reflection on collective agency within inherited economic structures.

Manifesta 16

• June 21 – October 4, 2026
• Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Bochum, Germany

Conceived in the aftermath of the Cold War, Manifesta has, since 1998, operated as a nomadic artistic platform that changes host city every two years, often unfolding as a site-specific experiment. Each edition engages directly with local histories and communities, urban conditions and geopolitical fault lines, while situating them within broader European and global conversations. As one of the most context-responsive and politically attuned biennials, Manifesta functions less as a fixed showcase than as a process-driven experiment and civic platform rooted in long-term research and engagement. The 16th edition will take place across four cities in Germany’s Ruhr Area, activating 12 abandoned postwar church buildings across Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Bochum. The choice of site feels both particularly charged and resonant at a moment when, amid rising geopolitical tensions, Germany’s and the church’s power—as well as Europe’s political cohesion and global standing—have been repeatedly tested, exposing deep fragilities just as the threat of renewed conflict once again looms on the continent’s horizon.
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The 18th Biennale de Lyon

• September 19 – December, 2026
• Lyonne, France

The Lyon Biennial is among Europe’s most influential contemporary art biennials—and the leading and longest-running one in France—renowned for its strong curatorial vision and large-scale exhibitions. Staged across the city of Lyon and its surrounding industrial sites, past editions have frequently engaged with the city’s layered history, addressing urgent questions of labor, urban transformation and collective memory, often reactivating former factories, warehouses and infrastructural spaces as key exhibition venues. Leading the 2026 edition is curator, scholar and writer Catherine Nichols, who currently serves as curator at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof—Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, and previously curated Manifesta 14 Prishtina in 2022.

All the other Biennials and Triennials in 2026

• Manif d’art 12 – La Biennale de Québec
• Quebec City, Canada; February 28 – April 19, 2026
• Flamm
• Bodmin, U.K.; February 28 – March 1, 2026
• FotoFest Biennial
• Houston, Texas; March 7 – May 10, 2026
• Klima Biennale Wien
• Vienna, Austria; April 9 – May 10, 2026
• Anozero’26: Coimbra Biennial of Contemporary Art
• Coimbra, Portugal; April 11 – July 5, 2026
• Design Doha
• Doha, Qatar; April 12 – June 30, 2026
• Innsbruck International
• Innsbruck, Austria; April 25 – May 3, 2026
• Biennale Gherdëina 10
• Val Gardena, Italy; May 31 – September 13, 2026
• The 7th Mardin Biennial
• Mardin, Turkey; May 15 – June 21, 2026
• Glasgow International
• Glasgow, Scotland; June 5-21, 2026
• The Medina Triennial
• Medina, New York; June – September, 2026
• Sonsbeek
• Arnhem, Netherlands; July 2 – October 11, 2026
• The Edinburgh Art Festival
• Edinburgh, Scotland; August 14-30, 2026
• The Toronto Biennial of Art
• Toronto, Canada; September 26 – December 20, 2026
• The 27th Alexandria Biennale
• Alexandria, Egypt; September, 2026
• The Lagos Biennial
• Lagos, Nigeria; October 17- December 18, 2026
• The Rubaiya Qatar Inaugural Quadriennial
• Doha, Qatar; November 2026 – Spring 2027
• The NGV Triennial
• Melbourne, Australia; December 13, 2026 – April 11, 2027