Koyo Kouoh, curator of the 2026 Venice Biennale, dies at 57

Koyo Kouoh, the renowned Cameroonian-Swiss curator and cultural producer, passed away suddenly on 10 May 2025 at the age of 57. Born in Douala, Cameroon, in 1967, she moved to Zurich as a teenager and initially trained in banking before transitioning to cultural management and the arts. She founded RAW Material Company in Dakar in 2008—an influential centre for art, knowledge and society—and since 2019 served as the Executive Director and Chief Curator of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, where she championed a Pan-African and feminist vision of contemporary art. Her career was marked by a deep commitment to challenging Eurocentric structures in the art world and creating space for African and diaspora voices.

Koyo Kouoh. Photo by Lia Toby /PA Media Assignments.

In December 2024, Kouoh was appointed curator of the 61st Venice Biennale, making history as the first African woman to be entrusted with the role. She had already begun shaping what many anticipated would be a radical and transformative edition of the Biennale, grounded in decolonial and inclusive practices. Her unexpected death left the international art community in shock, with major institutions and colleagues describing it as a “devastating loss” and a “gaping wound” in global culture. Zeitz MOCAA honoured her as a pioneering force whose vision would continue to influence the museum and the broader field for years to come.

In 2024, Kouoh was interviewed by FLO London ahead of her keynote at the Association of Women in the Arts (AWITA) conference ‘Build Your Own Art World’ at Christie’s. In this candid and wide-ranging conversation, she spoke about the urgency of platforming women in the arts, and noted that over 60% of exhibitions at Zeitz MOCAA under her leadership featured female artists. She spoke passionately about building a future shaped by radical care, urgency, and responsibility—a vision that resonated deeply and continues to inspire. Tributes following her passing have echoed those words, urging the art world to honour her legacy not only with remembrance, but with continued action toward the equitable and inclusive cultural landscape she so fiercely believed in.