Germany Reveals 2026 Venice Biennale Artists
By ANNETTE MEIER
Portrait of (left) HENRIKE NAUMANN and (right) SUNG TIEU. Photo by Victoria Tomaschkol. Courtesy the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, Germany.
On May 26, Germany’s Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa) announced Sung Tieu and Henrike Naumann as the German Pavilion’s representatives at the 61st Venice Biennale, which will open in April next year.
Born in Hải Dương and based in Berlin, Tieu is a Vietnamese German artist whose practice delves into the relationship between identity and geopolitics, with a focus on the enduring legacy of colonialism and covert power structures. Spanning various media and materials—including sculpture, sound, video, installation, photography, archival documents, and more—her work probes the psychological impacts of migration, rigid bureaucracy, and state control.
Naumann, born in Zwickau and also based in Berlin, examines sociopolitical tensions through scenographic video and sound installations that often comprise furniture and found objects. Having grown up in East Germany (formerly the German Democratic Republic), where she experienced the right-wing extremist leanings in youth culture during the ’90s, Naumann is especially interested in the mechanisms of radicalization and its effects on a personal and domestic level.
The pair was nominated by the German Pavilion’s curator Kathleen Reinhardt, who noted in a press release that they “pose questions about historical responsibility” and “the role of individual and collective agency” in their respective practices. “I am looking forward to developing new site-specific works for Venice with both of them,” she added.
The exhibition at the German Pavilion is slated to open on May 9, 2026.
Annette Meier is an editorial assistant at ArtAsiaPacific.
