Prazzle

We're heading to Venice for the 61st La Biennale di Venezia, and we know the scale can be overwhelming. With nearly 100 countries participating, we've curated an essential guide to the pavilions you shouldn't miss. This year's Biennale unfolds under the vision of the late Koyo Kuoh and the curatorial theme "In Minor Keys."

We'll be on the ground during preview week. If you'd like to connect or collaborate, reach out.

Biennale Dates
Preview: May 5–8
General Opening: May 9–November 22

Here are some highlighted pavilions to watch:

Predicting History: Testing Translation
📍 British Pavilion, represented by

Ruin curated by .reinhardt, represented by and Henrike Naumann
📍 German Pavilion

Shame Parade by
📍 Scotland Pavilion

In Another Man's Yard, artists .munroe.studio
📍 Bahamas Pavilion

The Ear is the Eye of the Soul
📍 Vatican Pavilion, curated by

A Place in the Sun: Staging the Unknown by
📍 Albania Pavilion

May your tears never dry, you who weep over stones
📍 Saudi Arabia Pavilion

Predicting History: Testing Translation, artists
📍 The Nordic Pavilion

Grass Babies: Moon Babies, artist .arakawa.nash
📍 Japan Pavilion curated by and

🔗 See the full guide https://www.prazzlearts.com/editorial/venice-biennale-explained-15-national-pavilions-to-watch-at-the-61st-edition-in-minor-keys-2026

.design.week 2026 opened April 20, across Milan. As the global design world gathers in the city, the week transforms everyday spaces into ideas about how we live, build, and share the world.

With the Salone del Mobile and Fuorisalone unfolding across the city, this year’s edition reflects the scale and energy of design today. Guided by two themes, A Matter of Salone and Be the Project, the focus shifts to material, process, and the role we all play in shaping the world around us.

Here are some of our must-see exhibitions and installations:
The Paper Log: Shell and Core by Issey Miyake
📍 Issey Miyake, Via Bagutta 12

When Apricots Blossom by ACDF
📍 Palazzo Citterio, Via Brera 12

Hermès, Palladion d'Hermès Vase
📍 La Pelota Jai Alai, Via Palermo 10

Wonderland of the Monsters

📍 Via San Marco 26

Metamorphosis in Motion by Lina Ghotmeh
📍 Dover Street Market Paris, Marais District, Paris

Over and Over and Over and Over by 6AM
📍 Centro Balneare Romano (Piscina Romano), Via Ampère 24

L'Appartmento by Artemest
📍 Palazzo Donizetti, Via Gaetano Donizetti 48

Polish Modernism: The Fight for Beauty .foundation
📍 Torre Velasca, Piazza Velasca 3/5, 16th Floor

Renaissance of the Real by USM x Snøhetta
📍Fondazione Luigi Rovati, Corso Venezia 5

Milan Design Week 2026 runs until April 26

🔗 See the full guide https://www.prazzlearts.com/editorial/15-must-see-art-exhibitions-and-installations-at-milan-design-week-2026

During his secret detention in 2011, was held for 81 days with no contact, no privacy, and no acknowledgement from authorities that he was even there. When a soldier finally came to sew a button back onto his trousers, it had taken weeks of approval.

After more than two months, a soldier entered the cell with a needle and thread. In front of a surveillance camera, he carefully sewed the button back onto Ai Weiwei’s trousers, every movement being watched. The stitching was uneven and slightly off, but the act itself became heavy with meaning. Even something as small as a button had required a long chain of bureaucratic approval, and when it finally arrived, it felt like a rare and significant gesture.

Now, Ai Weiwei returns to that moment in Sewing a Button, a 24-hour live performance inside a full-scale reconstruction of his prison cell (7.2 by 3.6 metres), set within the vast Hall at Factory International’s Aviva Studios. Audiences admitted in two-hour slots will watch him sleep, eat, move, and carry out daily routines, while actors stage interrogations.

The performance runs alongside Button Up!, his largest site-specific exhibition to date, featuring new works including flags made from hundreds of thousands of buttons and a vast toy-brick mosaic exploring power, conflict, and global systems.

📍 Aviva Studios, Home of
🗓 5pm, 3 July - 5pm, 4 July 2026
Button Up! runs 2 July - 6 September 2026

🔗 Learn more https://www.prazzlearts.com/editorial/one-button-81-days-24-hours-ai-weiwei-restages-his-secret-detention-in-manchester