Koyo Kouoh, prominent art world figure, dies aged 57

Koyo Kouoh, who was described by The New York Times in 2015 as "one of Africa's most important art curators", was awarded the Grand Prix Suisse d'art / Prix Meret Oppenheim in 2020. Keystone-SDA

Koyo Kouoh, curator of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Biennale Arte 2026, has died, aged 57, it was announced on Saturday.

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“La Biennale di Venezia is deeply saddened and dismayed to learn of the sudden and untimely passing of Koyo Kouoh, curator of the 61st International Art Exhibition, scheduled to open on 9 May 2026,” the institution said in a statementExternal link on Saturday.

Her “sudden and untimely passing” leaves an immense void in the world of contemporary art and in the international community of artists, curators, and scholars “who had the privilege of knowing and admiring her extraordinary human and intellectual commitment”, it said.

For the past six years, Koyo Kouoh, who grew up between Douala in Cameroon and Zurich, has headed one of the leading contemporary art museums on the African continent, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), and founded an art centre in Dakar, Senegal.

Swiss Art Grand Prix in 2020

The Cameroonian-Swiss woman, who The New York Times described in 2015 as “one of Africa’s most important art curators”, was awarded the Grand Prix Suisse d’art / Prix Meret Oppenheim in 2020.

She came to Zurich in her early teens to be reunited with her mother. She trained as a banker and businesswoman before turning to the arts. She also lived in Basel for many years.

A leader in pan-Africanism

“It is a unique honour and privilege to follow in the footsteps of illustrious predecessors in the role of artistic director and to create an exhibition that I hope will have meaning for the world we live in at the moment and, more importantly, for the world we want to build,” Kouoh declared when she was chosen to curate Biennale Arte 2026.

Two years ago, she explained to the AFP news agency her attachment to what she calls the “black geographies”, seeing the “undeniable” influences of “black culture” throughout the world, from the United States to Brazil, from which her predecessor Adriano Pedrosa, at the helm of the 2024 Biennale, hails.

She would have been only the second African curator of the Biennale Arte. The Nigerian-American Okwui Enwezor, who died in 2019, is the only person to have preceded her when he directed the 56th edition in 2015.

A major exhibition she curated, “When We See Us”, on a century of pan-African figurative painting, can currently be seen at Bozar in Brussels until August 10.

Translated from French by DeepL/sb

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