Koyo Kouoh, Curator Tapped for 61st Venice Biennale, Dies at 57

Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh, who was selected to lead the 2026 Venice Biennale, died suddenly at the age of 57 on Saturday, May 10. Her husband, Philippe Mall, confirmed with the New York Times that Kouoh’s death was attributed to her recent cancer diagnosis.

Appointed as the next Venice Biennale’s artistic director in December, Kouoh would have been the first African woman to oversee the international exhibition, whose theme and title she was reportedly slated to announce on May 20. Kouoh had also served as the executive director and chief curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa, since 2019. In light of Kouoh’s untimely passing, the museum closed its doors and suspended programming through today, May 12, and has invited her friends, loved ones, and those impacted by her work to dedicate physical or digital tributes in her memory.

Kouoh was born in 1967 in Douala, a coastal city in Cameroon, and moved to Zurich with her family as a teenager. She pursued an education in business administration and banking, but held a career as a social worker, primarily assisting migrant women. She soon established a writing and editing career, notably co-editing the German-language anthology Töchter Afrikas (1994), which was inspired by Ghanian-British publisher Margaret Busby’s Daughters of Africa (1992).

In the mid-’90s, Kouoh returned to Africa by way of Dakar, Senegal, making her full pivot to the arts and culture sector as an independent curator. Kouoh was brought on as a curatorial advisor to Documenta 12 in 2007 and Documenta 13 in 2012, and became the founding artistic director of Dakar’s RAW Material Company artist residency, exhibition space, and academy in 2008. She was also instrumental in developing the 1-54 Contemporary African art fair, which launched in 2013 and held its 11th New York iteration last weekend, having conceived of its Forum program and curated its Education program for eight consecutive editions.

Kouoh joined Zeitz MOCAA in 2019 in the wake of former Director Max Coetzee’s resignation due to a professional conduct investigation, steering the museum through its transitional period and the crest of the COVID-19 pandemic. She led multiple critical exhibitions championing Pan-African narratives, including When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting (2022–23), and the solo retrospectives of South African artists Tracey Rose and Johannes Phokela, as well as Nigerian-British artist Mary Evans.

In December, Kouoh said in a statement that it would be a “once-in-a-lifetime honor and privilege” to lead the next Venice Biennale.

“Koyo’s favorite adage was that people are more important than things, and she lived this philosophy of care throughout her life and work,” Claire Breukel, head of Global Patronage at Zeitz MOCAA, told Hyperallergic.

“Her life’s work of fighting for equity and ensuring Black creative voices are properly heard, understood and held will never be forgotten and we have to continue to build on her immense contributions to the field,” Breukel continued. “She is greatly missed.”

“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,” the Biennale committee shared in a memorial statement for Kouoh.

Kouoh is survived by her husband Philippe, her four children, her mother Agnes Steidl, and her stepfather Anton Steidl.