Three days is the honest answer to how long the Venice Biennale takes, and almost nobody gives it, because it sounds like an imposition. It is not. It is the difference between seeing an exhibition and merely having attended one. The 61st edition spreads across two enormous principal venues and some forty-six further national participations scattered through the city, and the visitor who tries to compress that into an afternoon is not being efficient. They are being defeated.
What follows is a route through In Minor Keys built around how Venice actually works — the vaporetto lines, the light, the hours the crowds arrive, and the fact that the Arsenale floors are harder than they look.
Day One: The Arsenale
Begin here, and begin at opening. The Arsenale is the physically harder of the two venues and it rewards fresh attention in a way the Giardini does not.
The former state shipyard is a linear procession through brick halls of a scale that domestic architecture gives you no preparation for. The route does not conveniently double back; once you commit, you walk the length. Most of the curated exhibition sits here rather than in the national pavilions, which means this is where Kouoh’s argument is actually made.
Wolff Architects of Cape Town designed the scenography around thresholds and standing supports rather than solid walls, so the movement through the halls is closer to a procession than a gallery circuit. That is deliberate, and it is best experienced without a crowd pressing behind you. The first hour is markedly quieter.
In the harbour sits Wangechi Mutu’s SimbiSiren (2026), a bronze hybrid of mermaid, sphinx, Kongo water spirit and the aerial root of a Mugumo fig, spilling over a perforated base. It photographs badly and rewards standing in front of it, which is true of a great deal here.
Allow four hours. If it is a Friday or Saturday before 26 September, consider inverting the day entirely and arriving at 16:00 instead: the Arsenale stays open to 20:00, the crowds thin after six, and the brick turns copper against the lagoon in a way that alone justifies the schedule.
Day Two: The Giardini
The Giardini is a park with 29 permanent national pavilions in it, several of them serious works of architecture, and the Central Pavilion at its heart dating to 1894.
It is the more forgiving venue precisely because it is not a single building. You move between freestanding structures under trees, there are benches, and you can sit down without leaving the exhibition. This matters more than it sounds by hour three.
Enter the Central Pavilion first. Otobong Nkanga’s Soft Offerings to Silenced Voices and to All Who Have Turned to Dust (2026) sits at the entrance and sets the exhibition’s terms with considerable economy. Inside, Mutu’s MothersMound (2026) rises as a knoll shaped like a pregnant body, anchoring one of very few rooms given over to a single artist. Godfried Donkor’s wall — the new commission hung beside works from the 2017 show Kouoh curated for him — is worth finding deliberately rather than stumbling upon.
Then work outward through the national pavilions. Take the booklet at the gate and mark what you want before you begin, rather than deciding in front of each door; the Giardini punishes indecision because the pavilions are not arranged in any order that corresponds to interest.
Allow five hours, and take lunch outside the gates rather than at the catering, which is limited and busy at exactly the hour you will want it.
Day Three: The City Pavilions
This is the day almost every visitor skips, and it is where a disproportionate amount of the interesting work sits this year.
Roughly 46 national participations are dispersed through palazzi, scuole and refectories across Venice, and most are free to enter. Your Biennale ticket is irrelevant here. Several of the strongest African pavilions are among them.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Simba Moto! Seize the Fire!, curated by the philosopher Nadia Yala Kisukidi, occupies the Antico Refettorio of the Scuola Grande di San Marco — nine artists including Sammy Baloji, Gosette Lubondo and Nelson Makengo, in a sixteenth-century refectory with the acoustics to match. Somalia’s first pavilion, curated by Mohamed Mire, runs across three floors of the Palazzo Caboto and is built around poetry, with Ayan Farah, Asmaa Jamaa and Warsan Shire. Equatorial Guinea’s debut, The Forest / The Undergrowth, is at the Palazzo Donà dalle Rose.
The organising principle for this day is sestiere, not country. Group the pavilions by district and walk them in geographical order. Planning by the list you were given will have you crossing the Grand Canal four times before lunch, and the vaporetto is not fast.
Opening hours for the city pavilions vary and several close earlier than the main venues. Check before setting out, because a locked door on the far side of Cannaregio is a long walk for nothing.
If You Only Have Two Days
Do the Arsenale in the morning of day one and the nearest cluster of city pavilions in the afternoon — the Scuola Grande di San Marco is a manageable walk from the Arsenale. Give day two entirely to the Giardini.
What you sacrifice is the dispersed pavilions in the western sestieri, which is a real loss but a survivable one. What you should not do is attempt both principal venues in a single day and keep a third for the city. That produces three exhausted half-visits.
A Note on Pacing
Kouoh built rest into the exhibition deliberately — spaces for contemplative pause, provided rather than left over. The temptation, having paid for a ticket and travelled to Venice, is to treat sitting down as time not spent looking. It is the opposite.
This is an exhibition organised around sensation rather than argument, in a minor key rather than a declarative one. It does not reveal itself to someone moving through it at pace with a list. The visitors who report the least from Venice are almost always the ones who saw the most rooms.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many days do you need at the Venice Biennale?
Three: one for the Arsenale, one for the Giardini, one for the city pavilions. Two is workable if you attach a cluster of city pavilions to the Arsenale afternoon. One day means seeing roughly half the exhibition.
Should I do the Giardini or the Arsenale first?
The Arsenale, and early. It is physically harder, its scale rewards fresh attention, and the first hour is quieter. Keep the Giardini for later, where there are trees and benches.
Are the city pavilions worth a separate day?
Yes. Around 46 national participations sit outside the two main venues, most free to enter, and they include several of the strongest presentations of the edition.
How do I get between the Giardini and the Arsenale?
About twenty minutes on foot along the Riva, or a short vaporetto hop on lines 1 or 4.1. The walk is pleasant in spring and autumn and punishing in August.
When is the quietest time to visit?
Weekday mornings, and the four open Mondays: 11 May, 1 June, 7 September and 16 November. Opening week, spring weekends and September to October are busiest.
Further reading: tickets, prices and opening hours; the full guide to In Minor Keys; and Koyo Kouoh, who designed it.
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