The project, masterminded by the founders' daughter Daniella Kaliada, aged 26, includes surveillance cameras that were purchased new but sanded to appear weathered. Painter Sergey Grinevich added a smear of paint meant to resemble seagull droppings, but Kaliada removed it, according to reports. The co-founders, Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, have been based in London since 2011.
According to major media, a new generation of artists and curators at this year's Biennale is moving beyond traditional media. Curator Stefanie Hessler noted a 'post-medium condition' where the idea outweighs medium specificity. Sung Tieu, born in Vietnam and raised in Germany, creates diverse works including bus tours and a Whitney Biennial sculpture; she says she avoids making work too easily legible. Godfried Donkor's canvas depicts boxer Peter Jackson with angel wings and a dragon on Financial Times pink pages, inspired by the Biennale title 'In Minor Keys' to resist spectacle.
I absolutely despise them.
The exhibition 'In Minor Keys', developed by the late Koyo Kouoh, who died in May 2024 aged 57, focuses on emotion and sensation, marginalised knowledge, and includes works by Mohammed Joha, Carsten Höller, Demond Melancon, and Tammy Nguyen. According to the Financial Times, Kouoh described it as neither a commentary nor an escape. The theme elicits diverse responses from 110 participants, with artists emphasising nuance and slowness.
There is always a danger that a narrative is being broadcast. With visual art, the individual constructs their own.
I thought, ‘what’s the biggest, grandest thing I could do?’ I wanted to make her proud,
Minor keys do not scream or force themselves on to you. They just carry the tune.
When you commission an artist you have no idea what they’re going to make — I want to be surprised,
the specificity of the medium...less important than the idea
neither a litany of commentary on world events nor an inattention or escape from compounding and continuous intersecting crises