Yto Barrada, a Franco-Moroccan artist with a strong international profile, has been selected to represent France at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026. The selection jury, chaired by Claire Le Restif, the director of the Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac outside Paris, chose Barrada because of “her multidisciplinary practice that brings together various artistic and social communities in search of a new utopia”.
The choice of the selection committee was backed by Jean-Noël Barrot, the minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati. The announcement comes against a backdrop of strengthened diplomatic ties between France and Morocco.
Born in 1971 in Paris, Barrada lives and works between New York and Tangier. She studied history and political science at the Sorbonne and also photography at the International Center of Photography in New York. The Institut français, which manages the national pavilion, says in a statement that “for a quarter of a century, she has been developing a multidisciplinary practice—installation, film, photography, sculpture, and textiles that address issues as diverse as the international trafficking of dinosaur fossils, colonial anthropology, pan-Africanism and cultural policies during the Cold War”.
Barrada has been the subject of monographic exhibitions, particularly in Europe and the United States, including shows at the Jeu de Paume in Paris (2006), the Renaissance Society in Chicago (2011) and Tate Modern in London (2011). She was also nominated for the 2016 Marcel Duchamp Prize, France’s most important contemporary art prize. Barrada is represented by Polaris gallery in Paris, Sfeir-Semler in Beirut and Hamburg, and Pace in London.
