4 hours ago
4
ROME – Koyo Kouoh, the curator of the 2026 Venice Art Biennale, has died astatine property 58, her location instauration successful South Africa said successful an Instagram station Saturday.
The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa successful Cape Town successful South Africa confirmed her passing overnight but gave nary origin of death. The Biennale said Saturday it was “deeply saddened and dismayed” to larn of her death.
Kouoh was the archetypal African pistillate tapped to helm the Venice Biennale. Born successful Cameroon successful 1967, she was tapped to curate the 2026 variation of the Biennale successful December. A starring fig successful promoting Pan-Africanism passim the creation world, Kouoh had been enforcement manager and main curator astatine Zeitz since 2019.
Appointed successful December 2024 by the committee of directors of La Biennale, Kouoh worked “with passion, intelligence rigor and imaginativeness connected the conception and improvement of the Biennale Arte 2026,” the Venice arts instauration said.
The presumption of the exhibition’s rubric and taxable was owed to instrumentality spot successful Venice connected May 20.
“Her passing leaves an immense void successful the satellite of modern creation and successful the planetary assemblage of artists, curators, and scholars who had the privilege of knowing and admiring her bonzer quality and intelligence commitment,” the Biennale said.
It extended “its deepest sympathies and affection” to Kouoh’s household and friends, and “all those who shared with her a travel of probe and captious thought connected modern art.”
In a statement, Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni connected Saturday expressed her “deepest condolences” for Kouoh’s “premature and abrupt passing,” noting it “leaves a void successful the satellite of modern art.”
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.
English (US) ·