The Reykjavík-based Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir will represent Iceland at the 2026 Venice Biennale, the Icelandic Art Center announced on Wednesday.
Born in 1987 in the Icelandic capital, Sigurðardóttir is known for wearing many hats. The fine art graduate from the Iceland University of the Arts is an artist recognized for her multidisciplinary practice that fuses visual art mediums ranging from drawings to sculptures with sound, text, moving image, and performances. She has exhibited at museums locally and abroad, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm, and Onassis in Athens.
She is also an award-winning poet having published five books, and her achievements garnered her a nomination for literature prize, Prix Bernard Heidsieck-Centre Pompidou, in 2021. Other credits under her belt include a member of the three-piece electronic outfit aYia, a co-founder of Kunstschlager, an artist-run gallery in the city, and experimental poetry festival Suttungur.
Portrait of Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir. Courtesy of the artist and Iceland Pavilion. Photo credit: Sandijs Ruluks.
“I am honored and excited to represent Iceland at the 2026 Venice Biennale,” the artist said in a statement. “I have the feeling it will be a thrilling experience, fueled with splendid serendipity. I am over the moon I have to say, like we say in Icelandic ég er himinlifandi, which literally means I am sky-alive.”
Iceland has been a regular at Venice Biennale since 1960s and began presenting its national pavilion in 1984. The Icelandic Art Center is the commissioner of the pavilion. Recent presentations include the conceptual That’s a Very Large Number—A Commerzbau by Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir this year and Perceptual Motion, a monumental, meticulously crafted audio-visual installation by Sigurður Guðjónsson in 2022.
The announcement follows La Biennale’s announcement on Tuesday of Koyo Kouoh as the curator of the upcoming 61st edition. The executive director and chief curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town is the first African woman to helm the show. It is the first major appointment after right-wing journalist Pietrangelo Buttafuoco became president of Venice Biennale, which will run from April to November in 2026.
Meanwhile, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum also announced today that the Taipei-based artist Li Yi-fan will be featured at the 2026 Taiwan exhibition, an official collateral event of Venice Biennale. Born in 1989, Li is an award-winning artist who works with digital media, often creating surreal and humorous narratives with the use of game engines that he develops.
Taiwan began its participation in Venice Biennale in 1995 running its own national pavilion until it was demoted to a collateral event in 2003 after organizers conceded to protests from China, which took over the national pavilion status.
Just a few other countries have so far announced their artists for the 61st Venice Biennale, including Canada, Estonia, and Ireland.