Koyo Kouoh, the visionary director and chief curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), has died at age 57. Kouoh, recently appointed curator of the 2026 Venice Biennale, was a transformative force in contemporary art, championing African perspectives on the global stage.
Born in Douala, Cameroon, in 1967, Kouoh moved to Switzerland at 13, where she spent her formative years. Initially pursuing business administration and banking, she later shifted to writing and editing, co-publishing the German-language anthology Töchter Afrikas (1994), inspired by Margaret Busby’s Daughters of Africa.
Her curatorial work began after relocating to Dakar, Senegal, where she co-curated the Bamako Encounters photography biennale in 2001 and 2003 alongside Simon Njami. In 2008, she founded RAW Material Company, a vital Dakar-based arts initiative that fostered critical discourse and experimental practice. “Dakar made me who I am today,” she told The Financial Times earlier this month. “It’s where I came of age professionally, where I became a curator and an exhibition-maker.”
Kouoh’s influence extended internationally through roles such as curatorial advisor for Documenta 12 and 13 (2007, 2012) and curator of EVA International (2016) in Limerick, Ireland. Her exhibition Still (The) Barbarians interrogated postcolonial narratives, featuring over 50 artists.
In 2019, she took the helm at Zeitz MOCAA, revitalising the institution with what The New York Times called “an explicitly Pan-African, world-class program.” Under her leadership, the museum mounted landmark exhibitions, including When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, now showing at Bozar, Brussels.
Her appointment as the first African woman to curate the Venice Biennale in 2026 marked a historic milestone. The Biennale’s board praised her “passion, intellectual rigour, and vision” in shaping the upcoming edition, set to open on May 9, 2026.
Artists and colleagues have flooded social media with tributes. Candice Breitz remembered her as “magnificently intelligent, endlessly energetic, and formidably elegant,” while Otobong Nkanga wrote, “She always said people are more important than things—today, we feel her absence deeply.”
La Biennale di Venezia made the following statement: It 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 May 9 2026.
Appointed in December 2024 by the Board of Directors of La Biennale, Koyo Kouoh worked with passion, intellectual rigour and vision on the conception and development of the Biennale Arte 2026. The presentation of the Exhibition’s title and theme was due to take place in Venice on May 20.
Her 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.
La Biennale di Venezia extends its deepest sympathies and affection to her family, her friends, and all those who shared a journey of research and critical thought on contemporary art.
Koyo Kouoh organised meaningful and timely exhibitions such as Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the Works of Six African Women Artists, first shown at Wiels in Brussels, Belgium, in 2015. She curated Still (the) Barbarians, 37th EVA International, the Ireland Biennial in Limerick in 2016. She participated in the 57th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, with the deeply researched exhibition project Dig Where You Stand (2018), a show within a show drawn from the collections of the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. She was curator of the Educational and Artistic Programme of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, UK and New York, US, from 2013 to 2017. She initiated the research project Saving Bruce Lee: African and Arab Cinema in the Era of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy, which she co-curated with Rasha Salti at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Russia, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany (2015-2018). Active in the critical field of the arts community in a pan-African and international scope, Kouoh has a remarkable list of publications under her name, including When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting (2022), which accompanied the eponymous show that opened at Zeitz MOCAA in November 2022; Shooting Down Babylon (2022), the first monograph of the work of South African artist Tracey Rose; Breathing Out of School: RAW Académie (2021); Condition Report on Art History in Africa (2020); Word! Word? Word! To name a few, Issa Samb and The Undecipherable Form (2013) and Condition Report on Building Art Institutions in Africa (2012). While at Zeitz MOCAA, her curatorial work focuses on in-depth solo exhibitions by African and African-descent artists. As such, she has organised exhibitions with Otobong Nkanga, Johannes Phokela, Senzeni Marasela, Abdoulaye Konaté, Tracey Rose, and Mary Evans.
Image Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia