Greta Rainbow (Hyperallergic) writes that Koyo Kouoh was honored with a poetry caravan Cuban-born artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons: “The late curator’s 1999 voyage with nine African poets inspired a moving procession led by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, writers, and musicians.”
In the middle of the second day of the Venice Biennale’s opening preview, Cuban artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons took the first step of a poetry caravan across seven locations in the Giardini in honor of Koyo Kouoh, the late curator of this year’s main exhibition, In Minor Keys.
“Today and forever, Koyo Kouoh, you are here with us… We are coming. Almost there, mother of the water. Almost there, mother of the ocean,” Campos-Pons announced to the growing crowd, some of whom were fellow artists that Kouoh selected for the Biennale. Many more were unsuspecting bystanders standing in line for free Illy-sponsored espresso, now forced to confront the conscience so often separated from commerce at this art-world spectacle.
This was a gift to Kouoh, Campos-Pons continued, “a minor key to keep fighting and working for the center of our core, for the center that is what is to be human. And be a daughter, a son, of the original continent of humanity, Africa.” [. . .]
More than a dozen people spoke under the hot afternoon sun, in several languages, among them the acclaimed poets Natalie Diaz, Robin Coste Lewis, Batool Abu Akleen, and Anne Waldman. “We must protect all the beauties of our civilization,” Waldman said before reading a work about the power of the archive. “We’re still waiting for the next level of transition, and this helps.”
There was poetry without words, too, from virtuosic kora player Saliou Cissokho, who seemed to bring a calm to the Biennale, and from Swiss saxophonist and composer Philippe Mall, Kouoh’s husband. He played an original composition titled “Wise One,” dedicated to his “beloved friend and wife,” as well as Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy.” [. . .]
For full article, see https://hyperallergic.com/artists-pay-tribute-to-koyo-kouoh-in-poetry-caravan-at-venice-biennale/?ref=weekly-newsletter
[Photo above by Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic: María Magdalena Campos-Pons leads a “poetry caravan” in honor of Koyo Kouoh at the Venice Biennale on May 7, 2026.]
Greta Rainbow (Hyperallergic) writes that Koyo Kouoh was honored with a poetry caravan Cuban-born artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons: “The late curator’s 1999 voyage with nine African poets inspired a moving procession led by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, writers, and musicians.” In the middle of the second day of the Venice Biennale’s opening preview, Cuban artist María
