Artist Dries Verhoeven will be Dutch representation on the Venice Biennale in 2026

Artist Dries Verhoeven (1976) represents the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale in 2026. The Mondriaan Fund announced this on Tuesday. The Dutch theater maker and artist works for the entry together with curator Rieke Vos (1981). According to the fund, the two bring performance art to the Dutch Rietveld pavilion in Venice.

With a ‘performative intervention’, Verhoeven responds to the ‘uncertain state of mind’ that he experiences in the Netherlands and Europe. Verhoeven: “The geopolitical tension is grim to say the least; it has been a long time since our future was so uncertain. I want to try to make the unrest tangible within the safe space from the biennial. ” He takes the Rietveld pavilion, which is in principle the designated location for the artificial biennial, as the subject in the intervention from 1954.

The entry was chosen by an international jury that advises the Mondriaan Fund. Eelco van der Lingen, director of the Fund, places the choice for Verhoevens proposal in a recent development. In 2022, artist Melanie Bonajo chose to exhibit outside the Rietveld pavilion. Two years ago, Renzo Martens organized a double exhibition in Congo, with a Congolese collective. Van der Lingen sees that the Mondriaan Fund has now chosen an entry again that asks aside conventions and hierarchy and national representation. The building, the garden, the biennial and the ratio with the world outside of it deserve to be discussed.  »

Dries Verhoeven makes performances and installations, sometimes in the public space. He often invites his audience to participate or think, the viewer holds a mirror in working on capitalist society. Art historian and curator Rieke Vos has been a curator of contemporary art at the Teylers Museum in Haarlem since 2023.

The Biennale takes place in 2026, from 9 May to 22 November.

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