.jpg)
Iranian-born Artist to Represent Canada at the 2026 Venice Biennale
By Annette Meier
Portrait of ABBAS AKHAVAN. Courtesy the National Gallery of Canada.
The National Gallery of Canada (NGC) in Ottawa has announced that Tehran-born artist Abbas Akhavan will represent Canada at the 61st Venice Biennale, which is slated to open in April 2026. Canada is the first nation to select its forthcoming representative, with the announcement coming one month before the 60th edition has even concluded.
Based between Montreal and Berlin, Akhavan creates works that span drawing, video, sculpture, performance, and site-specific installations, and which explore the geopolitical powers that define history and territory. While his work revolves around architecture, the economy, and people, Akhavan is particularly interested in the domestic sphere, which he told ArtAsiaPacific in 2019 he views as “a forked space between hospitality and hostility.” His work has been featured in various international biennials, such as the 2023 Gwangju Biennale, the Sharjah Biennial in 2017, and the 2014 Montreal Biennale, among others.
Akhavan was selected as the Canadian representative by a committee comprising regional experts, including Léuli Eshrāghi, curator of Indigenous Practices at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art; Crystal Mowry, director of programs at the Regina-based MacKenzie Art Gallery; Julie Crooks, curator of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora at the Art Gallery of Ontario; Daina Warren, executive director of Indigenous Initiatives at Vancouver’s Emily Carr University; Pan Wendt, curator at the Charlottetown-based Confederation Centre of the Arts; and Jean-François Bélisle, NGC’s director and CEO as well as the commissioner of the Canada Pavilion in Venice.
The artist selection committee described Akhavan in a press release as “a meticulous artist and thinker for whom the site of an exhibition becomes both a proposal and provocation involving the staging of relations between materials, memory, and place.” Bélisle added: “We look forward to supporting him in bringing this vision to life at the Canada Pavilion.”
For the 61st Venice Biennale, Akhavan will transform the Canada Pavilion, which is situated within the Italian city’s historic Giardini della Biennale.
Annette Meier is an editorial assistant at ArtAsiaPacific.
