Below are the Yale alumni artists represented at this year’s 61st Venice Biennale. Organized around the theme In Minor Keys by Koyo Kouoh, this year’s events will run from Saturday May 9th to Sunday November 22 2026 at the Giardini and the Arsenale venues, and in various locations around Venice. On May 7th, you may like to join Tammy Nguyen MFA ’13 and Martina Droth in celebration of these Yale artists. More info and how to RSVP here.
Torkwase Dyson, MFA 2003
Originator of Black Compositional Thought, a theory that considers the way black bodies form spatial networks “and how attendant properties of energy, space, and objects interact to form networks of liberation.” Black liberation, Black geographies, and “industrialized white supremacist power” are themes explored in her art, which, in the words of Nader Tehrani “explores practices that cannot easily fall into simple disciplinary silos.” With a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, A B.A. in Sociology from Tougaloo College, and a MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University, Dyson’s notable projects include Studio South Zero (SSZ), a mobile solar-powered art studio. In partnership with Danielle Purifoy, she explored and collaborated with rural Black communities to create maps, photography, and drawings that reflect their experiences. (2016). Recent exhibitions include Akua (2025–26) with the Public Art Fund and Liquid Shadows, Solid Dreams (A Monastic Playground), (2024–25) at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
https://www.torkwasedyson.com/bio
Michael Joo, MFA 1991, Visiting Critic in Sculpture, Yale School of Art
Returning artist Michael Joo previously exhibited in the 45th and 49th Venice Biennales. His work details the intersection of art and science with a keen focus on perception, highlighting the culmination of ontology, entropy, and epistemology in his pieces. Joo, who desires to make possible the impossible, has exhibited in the UK, Michael Joo, Doppelganger, Cass Sculpture Foundation, Sussex, UK; Washington, D.C., Perspectives: Michael Joo, Smithsonian Freer | Sackler Museum, Washington, DC, USA; and Los Angeles, CA, Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice, Hammer Museum. His work is in permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Denver Art Museum among others. He is currently a Visiting Critic in Sculpture at Yale and Professor in the MFA program at Columbia.
https://www.instagram.com/michaeljoostudio/?hl=en
Wangechi Mutu, MFA 2000
Mutu is a sculptor and painter whose work encompasses Black feminist theory, ecology, modernism, and collage. She confronts questions of oppression and racism throughout her work. Her impactful pieces include Yo momma and Complete Prolapse of the Uterus, the latter portraying “the inner and outer ideals of self.” Mutu holds a BFA from Cooper Union and a MFA in Sculpture from Yale. Recent exhibitions include Black Soil Poems at Galleria Borghese, Rome, and her work is currently on view at New Museum, New York, in the exhibitionNew Humans: Memories of the Future.
https://www.instagram.com/wangechistudio
Hyeree Ro, MFA 2021, Sculpture (Korean Pavilion)
Venice Biennale artist Hyeree Ro grew up in both Korea and in California. After receiving a BFA from Korea National University of Arts in 2017 and a MFA in Sculpture from Yale, Ro was awarded the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. Her work is interdisciplinary, focusing both on sculpture and “multilingual fractured narrative-based performance.” Much of her work is inspired by her life as an immigrant and as the child of immigrants. She has discussed how after growing up in the U.S., returning to Korea, and then back to the U.S., her constantly shifting experiences inform her art. Her most recent exhibition, Niro, was on viewat the Doosan Art Center Doosan Gallery, Seoul (2024), and explored “themes of loss, mobility, invisibility, and intimacy.”
https://www.hyereero.com/about
Nabil Nahas, MFA 1973 (Lebanese Pavilion)
Representing Lebanon in the 61st Venice Biennale, artist Nabil Nahas participated in the 25th Bienal de São Paulo in Brazil (2002) and the 54th Venice Biennale (2011). Known for his dimensional paintings, Nahas references the natural world and geometric shapes. His work often depicts abstract interpretations of nature in his home country, Lebanon, including trees and the coming together of sea and sky. Nahas holds a BFA from LSU and a MFA in Painting from Yale. Nahas’s recent exhibitions include Grounded in the Sky, Château La Coste, France (2023) and his work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum.
https://www.nabilnahas.com/biography
Tammy Nguyen, MFA 2013
Tammy Ngueyn’s interdisciplinary approach to the creative process has resulted in the culmination of “geopolitics, ecology, and lesser-known histories” in her art practice. Ngeuyn expresses herself through many mediums including printmaking, painting, bookmaking and drawing. After earning her BFA from Cooper Union in 2007, she received a Fulbright to study lacquer painting in Vietnam in 2008. Ngeuyn earned her MFA from Yale and subsequently appeared in several group exhibitions including DRAW: Mapping Madness at the Inside-Out Museum in Beijing (2014) and Bronx Calling: The Third AIM Biennial atthe Bronx Museum (2015). In 2016, she founded her own independent press, Passenger Pigeon Press, “which pursues nuance through the creation of artist books.” Her work has been showcased by Tropical Futures Institute, SEA Focus, Singapore (2022), Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan (2022), and Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Korea (2023). Her most recent exhibition The Horror! The Horror! is currently on view at the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX, through September 6, 2026.
https://www.tammynguyenstudio.com
Yo-E Ryou, MFA 2018
Hailing from Seoul, South Korea, Yo-E Ryou began her journey at the Rhode Island School of Design where she completed her BFA in 2012. She continued her education at Yale University, earning an MFA in 2018. Ryou’s disciplines include film, sound, performance, drawing, and installation. Through these mediums, Ryou explores the way water propagates and transmits ecological memory and knowledge. Ryou has done numerous projects surrounding hydro-feminist thought citing that “…her practice approaches water not only as a conceptual framework but as a lived, elemental condition that reshapes how bodies and environments remember and relate.” Ryou has also collaborated on several immersive projects with the Haenyeo community of Jeju Island, most recently a multimedia installation entitled Ellipses. Ryou is a lecturer at Paju Typography Institute in Korea.
Okwui Okpokwasili, BA 1995
MacArthur Fellow Okwui Okpokwasili wears many hats: Performer, Choreographer, Actress, and Writer. Okpokwasili began her career after earning her B.A. at Yale. There she met award-winning film director Andrew Rossi, who would go on to direct a documentary about her piece Bronx Gothic (2017). Okpokwasili’s work is situated at the intersection of installation, theater, and dance. She examines themes of sexual exploration, collectivism, Igbo folklore, and resilience as illustrated in her piece titled Poor People’s TV Room (2017). Her accolades are innumerable: Pent Up: A Revenge Dance, the first collaboration with her husband, Peter Born, garnered Okpokwasili a Bessie Award in 2009 and a New York Dance award in 2010. In 2016, Okpokwasili completed a residency with the Rauschenberg Foundation. In 2018, she was named a MacArthur Fellow and awarded the ‘genius grant.’ In 2023, Okpokwasili was a recipient of the Harkness Dance Residency at the BAM Fisher. She was also featured in The Exorcist: Believer the same year and most recently acted as Vertigo in the miniseries Agatha All Along (2024).
https://www.instagram.com/sweatvariant
Farah Al Qasimi, B.A. 2012, MFA, 2017, UAE Pavilion
Representing the UAE, video artist, photographer, and performer Farah Al Qasimi got her start after completing her B.A. in Art at Yale. Her work encompasses “material culture, globalized media, and contemporary society,” as illustrated in her photography book titled Hello Future (2022). Qasimi earned an MFA in Photography from the Yale School of Art. She also studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture the same year. She has had sixteen solo exhibitions, most recently Toy World at The Third Line in Dubai (2024). Her work is featured internationally in public collections at Art Jameel, Dubai, Tate Modern, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.