Venice Biennale's 2026 Golden Lion Jury To Be Led By Videobrasil Founder

The Venice Biennale has appointed the jury that will decide its 2026 Golden Lions, turning to a five-member panel led by Brazilian curator Solange Oliveira Farkas (b. 1957). Farkas will serve as president of the jury, which also includes Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, and Giovanna Zapperi.

The panel will determine the winners of the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, the Golden Lion for Best Participant in the International Exhibition, and the Silver Lion for a promising young participant. It may also award one special mention to a national pavilion and up to two special mentions to artists in the main exhibition.

The appointment is notable not only for the names involved, but for how it was made. Under normal circumstances, the Biennale's curator selects the jury. For the 2026 edition, that responsibility fell to the board of directors after Koyo Kouoh, the curator of the 2026 Biennale, died in May 2025 before she could name the panel. Kouoh's death also means the edition will not include a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, which is typically chosen by the curator ahead of the artist list being announced.

Farkas brings deep biennial experience to the role. She founded the Videobrasil Biennial in São Paulo in 1983 and served as its artistic director until 2004. She is now the founder and artistic director of Associação Cultural Videobrasil, which supports the biennial. From 2007 to 2010, she directed and served as chief curator of the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia. Her curatorial record includes solo exhibitions for Isaac Julien, Joseph Beuys, and Sophie Calle, as well as the 2024–25 exhibition“Videobrasil. Needs no Translation” at GES-2 in Moscow.

The other jurors bring similarly broad international experience. Dyangani Ose recently stepped down as director of MACBA in Barcelona after the museum ruled that her role as artistic director of the 2027 Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial created a conflict of interest. She has also held senior posts at Showroom in London, Creative Time in New York, and Tate Modern. Butt is an independent curator and writer and the founder of in-tangible institute, a platform focused on Southeast Asian art. Kuzma is a professor at the Yale School of Art and a former dean there, and she has worked extensively with the Office for Contemporary Art (OCA) Norway, Documenta 13, and the Soros Center for Contemporary Art in Kyiv. Zapperi is a professor of contemporary art history at the University of Geneva and co-curated“Defiant Muses. Delphine Seyrig and Feminist Video Collectives in France, 1970s–1980s,” which opened at the Reina Sofía in Madrid.

The announcement arrives as the Biennale continues to face scrutiny over the inclusion of Russia and Israel in the national pavilions. The European Union has threatened to cut its €2 million grant to the 2028 Biennale over Russia's participation, underscoring how closely the event remains tied to cultural diplomacy as well as artistic judgment.

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