Participation of Cyprus in the 61st International Art Exhibition – Biennale Arte 2026 in Venice
24/09/25 13:56 | Press release | Culture
9 May – 22 November 2026
The Department of Contemporary Culture of the Deputy Ministry of Culture announces that at the 61st Venice Biennale, Cyprus will be represented by visual artist Marina Xenofontos, curator Kyle Dancewicz, and a team of collaborators. The project is titled“It rests to the bones”.
The proposal has been selected by the Deputy Ministry’s Advisory Committee for the Selection of Artists and Works (Louli Michaelidou, Gabriel Koureas, Catherine Nikita, Nikos Pattichis and Polys Peslikas), among a total of 21 proposals submitted in response to an Open Call last March. The Open Call invited complete participation proposals which included a unified artistic and curatorial concept.
Selection Rationale:
“The committee unanimously selected the proposal “It Rests to the Bones” by the artist Marina Xenofontos, curated by Kyle Dancewicz. The committee found the fully-fledged proposal as not only engaging with pertinent issues of the difficult times we live in, but also bringing to the surface Cypriot micro-histories within a global context.
The installation of sculptures, video and sound delves into issues of personal and cultural memory with special emphasis on the power of folk traditions and heritage, to challenge established social norms, structures and conventions.
Xenofontos recontextualises various cultural memorabilia, bringing to light the layers embedded within them. In doing so, she resurfaces social and anthropological dimensions that dominant historical narratives had either obscured or entirely erased over time. Through this process, she interrogates memory’s reliability and stability while simultaneously exposing its fluid – and at times deceptive – nature.
Through the installation, established cultural symbols and representation in itself are questioned. Cypriot culture is unpicked to reveal the unique history of the place, devoid of utopian narratives, through the voices of women usually positioned outside the social, familial and religious norms they have been confined in for centuries. Finally, the artist engages with the rapidly changing technologies of our time and their impact on our society, through revisiting the Industrial Revolution and the utopian world it had promised us.
Marina Xenofontos is an acclaimed artist with numerous exhibitions both in Cyprus and internationally. Curator Kyle Dancewicz currently serves as Deputy Director of the SculptureCenter in New York and has curated multiple exhibitions worldwide, collaborating with established artists. Their partnership with a distinguished team of local and international collaborators forms a dynamic ensemble poised to deliver a well-crafted and impactful presentation at the Venice Biennale.
Overall, the Committee was very pleased and excited about the wide response to this year’s Open Call as well as the quality of the proposals submitted, many of which demonstrated a high standard of artistic, curatorial and conceptual thinking, reflecting the outstanding level on which contemporary artistic practices in and from Cyprus are developing.”
On this occasion, the Committee and the Deputy Ministry of Culture wish to express their deep sorrow at the sudden passing of Koyo Kouoh on May 10, 2025, the history-changing curator who was to lead the 61st Venice Biennale as its Artistic Director.
The 61st edition of the event, under the title “In Minor Keys” and following the theme, structure and ideas conceived and defined by Koyo Kouoh, will run from Saturday 9 May to Sunday 22 November 2026 (preview 6–8 May), at the Giardini and the Arsenale venues, and in various locations around Venice.
In this next edition, the Cyprus Pavilion will be housed at Associazione Culturale Spiazzi, Castello 3865, 30124 Venezia, near the Arsenale.
Complete exhibition programme to follow.
Marina Xenofontos (b. 1988, Cyprus) lives and works between Athens, Greece and Limassol, Cyprus. Xenofontos’ recent solo exhibitions include Eternal, Returns, Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples (2025); View From Somewhere Near, Kunstverein Hamburg (2024); Public Domain, Camden Art Centre, London; and In Practice: Marina Xenofontos, SculptureCenter, New York (2023). Xenofontos holds an MFA in Sculpture from the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College, New York, and studied Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths College, London. Her artistic development has been further shaped by residencies at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (2018–2019) and Lafayette Anticipations in Paris (2022).
Since 2011, Xenofontos has been actively engaged in artist-led initiatives and collective practices in Cyprus, including her foundational involvement with Konteiner Space in Limassol (2010–2013) and the collective and artists’ space Neoterismoi Toumazou in Nicosia (2011–2018).
The Cyprus Pavilion is curated by Kyle Dancewicz(b. 1989, USA), deputy director of SculptureCenter, New York. He recently organized the exhibitions Tolia Astakhishvili: between father and mother (2024), Lydia Ourahmane: Tassili (2022), Henrike Naumann: Re-Education (2022), and SoiL Thornton, Niloufar Emamifar, and an Oral History of Knobkerry (2021), among many others. He holds a BA in the history of art and architecture from Harvard University.
Photo: Marina Xenofontos, Mirror Room, 2014
You may find the information in Turkish below.
(ΕΚ/AS/KA)
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