BY Andrew Durbin in Opinion | 20 JAN 25

Venice Biennale 2026: Give the British Pavilion to a Young Artist

In recent decades, most artists representing the UK in Venice have been born in the 1960s. Did Britain stop innovating?

BY Andrew Durbin in Opinion | 20 JAN 25

Ahead of the 61st Venice Biennale next April, the national pavilions have begun to announce their participating artists, including Abbas Akhavan for Canada, Yto Barrada for France and Florentina Holzinger for Austria. We should learn the name of the UK artist by late spring or early summer this year, but speculation is already mounting. After two pavilions largely devoted to installation, film and the photographic image, will it be a painter or a sculptor?

We may not yet know who the British Council has selected, but we can bet on one thing: whoever they are, they will almost certainly be from Generation X. In fact, out of the 14 artists exhibited in the British Pavilion since 1997, ten were born in the 1960s. Of the remaining four, Phyllida Barlow was born in 1944; Gilbert and George in 1943 and 1942, respectively; and Mark Wallinger in 1959. What an astonishing run for artists born before the lunar landing. But isn’t it time for a change?

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British Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. Photograph: © John Riddy

Historically, national pavilions have proven more useful in debuting talent on a global stage than cementing reputations. The 1966 presentation at the British Pavilion was devoted to ‘five young artists’: Anthony Caro, Bernard Cohen, Harold Cohen, Robyn Denny and Richard Smith. At the subsequent biennial, one of Caro’s students, a 34-year-old Phillip King, showed alongside Bridget Riley, who was 37 when she impressed audiences with her op-art installation on the pavilion’s ceiling. In 1976, a 31-year-old Richard Long mounted an extraordinary site-specific work, using Venetian brick. Yet, the last time the British Council invited an artist in their 30s was Chris Ofili in 2003, when he reinvented the pavilion, in collaboration with architect David Adjaye, to create a site-specific installation of new paintings. Before 2000, the average age of an artist presenting at the British Pavilion was 40. Since then, it has crept up to 52.

While plenty of the artists who have represented Britain since the 1990s have mounted fantastic solo presentations in Venice, the overall message the British Council has sent to the world and, more importantly, to young British artists, is that contemporary art in the UK is stuck with a single generation. Even the US, French and German pavilions – the countries to which the UK is most often compared – have dared to exhibit artists born in the 1970s and ’80s. Last year, France’s Julien Creuzet was born in 1986 and America’s Jeffrey Gibson in 1972. Why is the British Council seemingly so fearful of younger artists?

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Anne Imhof, Faust, 2017, performance view, German Pavilion, the 57th Venice Biennale. Courtesy: Eliza Douglas; photograph: Nadine Fraczkowski

The British Pavilion desperately needs a refresh; it has lost the element of surprise, once a guiding principle of contemporary art, leaving the impression that UK has run out of young talent. Skewing so heavily toward established artists – however beloved and deserving of our recognition – has steadily dampened interest in the pavilion. In recent years, the UK has produced no exhibition which has attracted the levels of debate we saw with Anne Imhof’s ‘Faust’ at the German Pavilion in 2017, mounted when she was in her late 30s. Nor has it pulled off the kind of sensational presentation an emerging artist is most likely to dream up. Think of Sun & Sea at the 2019 Lithuanian Pavilion, which won the Golden Lion and has since toured globally. All three collaborating artists – Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė – were in their early 30s at its premiere. Remember Danh Vo at the Danish Pavilion in 2015? He was 39. Three years later, he mounted a survey at the Guggenheim in New York. Photographer Edson Chagas was just 36 when the Angolan Pavilion won the Golden Lion in 2013, a first for a national presentation from Africa.

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Dominique White, the swelling enemy, 2024, driftwood, forged iron, sisal, raffia, kaolin clay, destroyed sails, dimensions variable. Courtesy: the artist; photograph: Matt Greenwood, © Above Ground Studio

Youth is not a guarantee of innovation or greatness. But, by ignoring artists born after 1970, the risk-averse British Pavilion is now at odds with the country it purports to represent. Today, the UK has a deep bench of exceptional artists in their 20s, 30s and 40s, living here or abroad. My own long list includes Ed Atkins, Rhea Dillon, Anthea Hamilton, Helen Marten, Rene Matić, Jack O’Brien, Prem Sahib, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Dominique White – only some of whom have garnered significant international attention so far. Many strolling the gardens of Venice might not recognize their name. That’s a good thing: it’s time for something new.

Of course, the pavilion system is antiquated. In an era of resurgent nationalism, representing a country is a difficult, even unpalatable task for many artists. Yet, the challenge itself might yield innovative and necessary results: the beginning of a more complex dialogue about nation and identity, rather than mere flag-waving. Archie Moore, who showed in the Australian Pavilion last year, won the Golden Lion for his exhibition challenging the colonialist narrative of Venice. So long as we are saddled with these ageing buildings in the Giardini, erected on a faulty, Eurocentric premise, why not ask a new generation to spruce up the place?

Main Image: Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė, Lina Lapelytė, Sun & Sea (Marina), 2019, opera-performance, 58th Venice Biennale. Courtesy: the artists; photograph: Andrej Vasilenko

Andrew Durbin is the editor-in-chief of frieze. His book The Wonderful World That Almost Was is forthcoming from FSG in 2025.

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