In 2026, a woman will wear the French colors, something that has only happened four times since France had its own flag. Yesterday, Monday November 18, the French Institute announced the choice of Yto Barrada (represented by the Polaris gallery in Paris) for the Venice Biennale 2026. During this 61st international Art exhibition, the artist’s project Franco-Moroccan will be welcomed in a completely renovated space after 15 months of restoration work which will begin in January 2025.
A multidisciplinary and borderless artist
Chaired by Claire Le Restif, director of the Contemporary Art Center of Ivry – Crédac, the selection commission was composed of Nicolas Bourriaud, Dominique Fontaine, Florence Ostende, Xavier Rey, Xavier Veilhan and institutional members Eva Nguyen Binh, president from the French Institute, Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens, director of cultural diplomacy, and Delphine Fournier, delegate for visual arts. The choice of Yto Barrada was then chosen by Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Rachida Dati, Minister of Culture.
Exterior view of the French Pavilion in Venice, inaugurated in 1912 © Schnepp Renou
After Zineb Sedira (2022) and Julien Creuzet (2024), the jury chose Yto Barrada “ for its multidisciplinary practice which brings together diverse artistic and social communities in search of a new utopia, specifies the French Institute in a press release. Iconoclastic researcher, total and borderless artist, Yto Barrada reinvents “social sculpture” in the light of alternative pedagogies and transforms the canons of modernism into a plural garden. From Paris to Tangier, via New York, she draws a unique map that collects new voices – invisible, fragile, historical or forgotten – to transmit their stories. »
Yto Barrada, Flea Market Tangier series, 2018–2023, chromogenic print, 60 x 76 cm, edition of 3 © Galerie Polaris Paris
A rereading of the modernist artistic avant-gardes
Yto Barrada was born in 1971 in Paris. She lives and works between New York and Tangier. For 25 years, the artist has developed several practices such as installation, film, photography, sculpture, textiles and even publishing. His projects address diverse and varied questions which may concern the instrumentalization of botany in urban policies, the international trafficking of dinosaur fossils, colonial anthropology, Pan-Africanism as well as cultural policies during the Cold War. “ Simultaneously exploring cultural facts, natural processes and historical stories, Yto Barrada’s work pays particular attention to the transmission of local know-how, the circulation of aesthetic forms and strategies of social disobedience, adds the French Institute. Highlighting the idea of community, artistic kinship and collaboration with friends and family, they often include a rereading of modernist artistic avant-gardes. »
Enter the Mothership: artist Yto Barrada’s Tangier garden | Tate
Works held in public collections around the world
Yto Barrada is also known for having founded the Tangier cinema library in 2006, in the former Rif cinema, and The Mothership, [le vaisseau-mère]a research and residency center around a garden of dye plants (used in dyes and dyes) that she has been cultivating for ten years. His work has been shown at the heart of numerous monographic exhibitions, from the Jeu de Paume (2006) to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (2022), via the Tate Modern in London (2011) and the Carré 3 d’Art in Nîmes ( 2015). Some of his works are notably kept at the Center Pompidou (Paris), at the MoMA (New York), at the Tate Modern (London), at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), at the Reina Sofia (Madrid) and at the Mumok ( Vienna). Until 2026, she presents “Yto Barrada: Le Grand Soir”, a giant installation, made up of stacked colored concrete blocks, which unfolds in the courtyard of MoMA PS1 in New York (2024).
View of “Yto Barrada: Le Grand Soir” at MoMA PS1, April 25, 2024 to 2026. Photo: Adam Reich
