The main exhibition

With gardens, parades, and art as an expression of lived reality, the 61st Venice Biennale is a celebration that puts people at its center

The only biographic details shared when the 111 artists participating in the 61st Venice Biennale were presented were the birth years of its oldest participant (Marcel Duchamp, born in 1887) and the youngest (Mohammed Z Rahman, born in 1997). This terseness is by design. After years of centering birthplace, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity as a curatorial concept in many major exhibitions—and following…