Canada 2026

Title: Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup
Commissioner: The Canada Pavilion is commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts
Organised by: National Gallery of Canada
Curator: Kim Ngyuen
Artist: Abbas Akhavan

One of the country’s foremost contemporary artists, Akhavan’s work deeply engages with the specificity of the sites in which he works, including the architectures that house them, the economies that surround them and the individuals that frequent them. Whether invoking the ruins of ancient statues destroyed during geopolitical conflicts or exploring the stated idealism of gardens and other domesticated spaces, Akhavan’s sculptural environments set the natural world in uneasy balance with the valorisation, exploitations or indeed indifferences of contexts, systems and projections all too human in origin.