“Venice Biennale Portrait” is a series of interviews conceived and conducted by Mara Sartore, introducing some of the most anticipated figures in the contemporary art scene on the occasion of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The series began before the inauguration of “In Minor Keys” under the title “Awaiting Venice Biennale 2026”. In both its phases, collectors, curators, artists, and directors engage in conversations exploring their roles, upcoming projects, and their relationship with Venice.

On the occasion of the largest exhibition ever dedicated to materiality in Judy Chicago’s practice – curated by Allison Raddock and on view at Alberta Pane Gallery in Venice until November 2026 – Mara Sartore met the artist, one of the most influential figures in contemporary art and international feminism.

In this conversation, Chicago reflects on the transformative power of art, the meaning of resistance today, and the role of materials in shaping a practice that, for more than six decades, has intertwined memory, politics, and imagination.

Sophie Jung is a Swiss-Luxembourgish artist based in Basel whose practice moves fluidly between sculpture, installation, performance, text, and spoken narration. Working with found objects, fragments, and associative forms of storytelling, Jung creates environments in which language and material become unstable, poetic, and often ironic. Her work explores processes of accumulation, displacement, and transformation, generating tensions between intimacy and theatricality, humor and disorientation. Through assemblage and performative gestures, she investigates how meaning is constructed, interrupted, and continuously renegotiated within contemporary visual culture.

MB – More than a format, we have tried to build a method. In this case the language of projection grew...

CC – Yes. If it depended solely on me, I would stay here. I would become a new Venetian.   “Kunsthaus...

My Art Guides is proud to announce the renewal of its partnership with Zurich Art Weekend on the occasion of the 2026 edition. Taking place from June 12–14, the ninth edition of Zurich Art Weekend presents a three-day, content-driven platform unfolding ahead of Art Basel, bringing together exhibitions, events, and interdisciplinary encounters across the city.

AJ – Yes, absolutely. I love Venice. We have to remember that Venice is a ville portière — a port...

From May 6th to November 2026, Il Teatro dell’Arte (NuoveFondamenta) in Venice presents Artocalypsa, a major exhibition by Czech artist David Černý, coinciding with the 61st Venice Biennale. Bringing together large-scale sculptures, political provocations, and dystopian imagery, the exhibition reflects on contemporary Europe through satire, violence, and technological anxiety. This interview explores Černý’s longstanding engagement with political contradiction, the aesthetics of conflict, and the enduring ambiguity between innovation and destruction, tracing how his work confronts the collapse of collective ideals in an increasingly unstable world.

CC – For me, it is fundamental to place the word “dream” beside “political”. Doing so means...

Bvlgari inaugurates its role as Exclusive Partner of the International Art Exhibition of the La Biennale...

From 9 May, the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore will present “The Shape of Time”, a major survey of the American artist Barry X Ball’s sculptural practice, which brings together technological innovation and Renaissance tradition within Andrea Palladio’s architectural masterpiece. This interview explores Ball’s practice at the intersection of art history, technology, and material experimentation. Using 3D scanning, digital modelling, robotic carving, and handwork, he develops a sculptural language that redefines the possibilities and legacy of stone.

Leo Frontini is a Los Angeles-based artist whose practice brings together classical draughtsmanship and oil painting traditions with an exploration of the subconscious. Yields of Fray, his first European exhibition, Presented by Private Waters at SPARC*-Spazio Arte Contemporanea on May 4, 5:30pm, running concurrently with the 61st International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Curated by Amah-Rose Abrams, the exhibition brings together 10 paintings, 5 drawings, and three sculptures created in Los Angeles in 2025 and 2026.

In this conversation, Frontini reflects on unraveling as both process and metaphor, the subconscious as a generative space for images, and the role of imagination as refuge, resistance, and renewal in a time marked by unrest.

DL: Yes, certainly. But I do not wish to concern myself with politics, because I do not understand it...

Every two years, for seven months, Venice becomes the global centre of contemporary art. The most recent...

CC – Everyone comes with their own experience. I find it strange when artists say they want the audience...

In this interview for My Art Guides, Nalini Malani reflects on "Of Woman Born", a major site-specific installation commissioned by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art as an Official Collateral Event of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Presented within the Magazzini del Sale, the work unfolds as a continually shifting 'thought chamber' where projections, sound, and memory converge around women, myth, and global conflict.

Through layered animations and immersive environments, Malani meditates on patriarchal violence, geopolitical accountability, and the suppressed agency of women, proposing empathy, interconnectedness, and the retelling of stories as necessary tools to imagine a more humane future.

MR – “Nature Speaks. Listening for Rights of Nature in Venice and Europe” sits in the broader idea...

Increasingly determined to consolidate its role as a capital of contemporary creativity, in recent years...

Creative director, designer, artist and storyteller, Marras has built a practice that spans fashion, visual arts, theatre and craft, producing a layered and highly distinctive visual imaginary. His work oscillates between memory and experimentation, between intimate dimension and collective narrative, always maintaining a strong drive towards the hybridisation of languages.
Today, with two projects underway in Milan – "Maria Lai | Antonio Marras: Paso Doble" at M77 Gallery and "Per filo e per segno. Percorsi di arte tessile in Italia" at BUILDING BOX – and one in London at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, this attitude is particularly evident. The show at M77 presents a dialogue with Maria Lai, a key figure in his artistic journey; at BUILDING BOX, his work is situated within a broader reflection on textiles as a critical and contemporary language.
Marras thus confirms a practice that eludes any single definition, weaving together different forms of knowledge and expression, and reaffirming the value of gesture, materiality and storytelling in an increasingly fast-moving and dematerialised present.

MC – I would like this to become a place that is alive all year round, as far as logistical and economic...

In this interview for My Art Guides, Wallace Chan reflects on a practice that transcends the boundaries between sculpture, jewellery art, and craftsmanship. Rooted in decades of experimentation with precious materials, his work moves seamlessly from the microscopic precision of jewellery to the monumental scale of “Vessels of Other Worlds” – a project unfolding between Venice and Shangai in which sculpture, space, and perception intertwine across physical and virtual dimensions.

The Venice exhibition opens on May 8, 2026, at the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà, while the parallel exhibition at the Long Museum in Shanghai will open July 18, 2026. Through this dual project, Chan explores themes of spirituality, transformation, and continuity, offering a vision of art as a space where material, philosophy, and perception converge.

EK – We often become very involved in politics and worry about many things. But one thing we keep forgetting...

Meet Dries Van Noten to explore the vision behind Fondazione Dries Van Noten...

My Art Guides returns to Milan with the 2026 edition of My Art Guide Milan. In April, Milan hosts the...