Venice Biennale
biennial art exhibit in Venice, Italy
The Venice Biennale ( BEE-en-AH-lay, -lee; Italian: la Biennale di Venezia [la bi.enˈnaːle di veˈnɛttsja]) is an international cultural exhibition hosted every two years in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale (la Biennale d'Arte di Venezia; described in this article) and the Architecture Biennale (la Biennale d'Architettura di Venezia), which have been held in alternating years since the establishment of the latter in 1980. There are also four additional components, comprising Biennale Musica, Biennale Teatro, Venice Film Festival, and Venice Dance Biennale. Between them they cover contemporary art, architecture, music, theatre, film, and contemporary dance. The main exhibition is held in Castello and has around 30 permanent pavilions built by different countries.
The Biennale has been organised every other year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of its kind. Since 2021, the Art Biennale has taken place in even years and the Architecture Biennale in odd years. Exhibition awards within each festival are known as the Golden Lion awards, which include the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
The 2026 Venice Biennale is taking place from May 9 to November 22, 2026.
History
1895–1947
On 19 April 1893, the Venetian City Council passed a resolution to set up a biennial exhibition of Italian Art ("Esposizione biennale artistica nazionale") to celebrate the silver anniversary of King Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy.
The public source identifies “Venice Biennale” as biennial art exhibit in Venice, Italy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Venice, Biennale and biennial.
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This entry incorporates text from “Venice Biennale” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.