New Orleans native Dawn DeDeaux brings nine works, spanning multiple decades, to the Venice Biennale, illustrating cycles of transformation, environmental change, and renewal told through sculpture, installation, video, charcoal drawings, and digital composite works. While many of the works emerge from moments of disruption and loss, they also reveal the unexpected beauty and possibility that can be found in their aftermath. The presentation has been widely praised for both the strength of the work itself and the immersive quality of its installation within the Venice Biennale exhibition.

Widely regarded as the most important recurring exhibition in contemporary art, the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia brings together artists from around the world whose work is shaping current international conversations in contemporary culture. DeDeaux’s inclusion in this year’s exhibition marks a significant achievement for the artist and an important moment of international recognition for a practice that has remained deeply connected to New Orleans for decades.

The Guardian highlighted DeDeaux in its review of the 2026 Venice Biennale, focusing on how her art uses environmental catastrophe to confront global crises. Her showcased installation explicitly anchors the exhibition’s closing section in the imperial Arsenale’s final bay, drawing critical acclaim for its forensic exploration of disaster and climate change.

Featured prominently within the exhibition is DeDeaux’s installation The Meteor Study Project, which brings together Meteors Between Dead Moons (2021–2026), a projection of two revolving “dead” moons interrupted by an incoming asteroid, and Floating Desk with Spinning Meteor (2024–2026), where a fragment of an actual meteor rotates above a wooden desk with a cracked and illuminated drawer. Additional works include Dirt Bowl Table (2021), composed of soil samples collected from around the world and arranged in hand-turned wooden bowls, and Watermarkers for Venice and New Orleans (2006/2026), representing flood levels in both cities through acrylic “slices of water.” 

In Dirt Bowl Table, the collected soils evoke a longstanding interest in the ways natural and human histories become inseparable over time. The work reflects an observation DeDeaux first made while walking through Luxor, Egypt, in 1982, where mineral particles and fragments of human-made objects had become indistinguishable within the earth itself. Throughout the installation, objects and materials appear detached from their original contexts, suggesting a world in which the boundaries between culture, history, and the natural environment have begun to dissolve. These works connect planetary and local histories while continuing DeDeaux’s long-running examination of environmental change and the future of coastal regions such as South Louisiana and Venice. Gathered together, displaced materials and fragmented histories are transformed into new narratives that reflect the cyclical nature of loss, renewal, and regeneration.

Also included in the presentation is Gulf to Galaxy, a work that DeDeaux has revisited in several forms since first creating it in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The piece was inspired by a journey DeDeaux made through coastal Mississippi in the weeks following the storm, when she walked for hours to determine whether her mother’s home had survived. While the home did not, along her trek, she encountered a dilapidated shopping center that had produced a sea of shattered glass in its destruction. Standing within the scene, surrounded by the remnants of the storm, DeDeaux saw immense beauty in the fragments scattered around her. That experience became the basis for an installation composed of broken glass formed into luminous pinwheel-like structures that suggest hurricanes, galaxies, or both. Through the work, DeDeaux brings together a theme that has long defined her practice: the search for restorative beauty within the debris of disaster and the possibility of transformation emerging from loss.

A native New Orleanian, DeDeaux has spent decades addressing Hurricane Katrina, the BP Oil Spill, Louisiana’s vanishing coastline, and broader questions surrounding humanity’s relationship to the planet. Through major projects including her ongoing MotherShip series, she has consistently explored how environmental crises reshape both human experience and the physical world. In 2025, she was recognized with the Ogden Museum of Southern Art Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring a career that has made a lasting impact on contemporary art in New Orleans and beyond. The septuagenarian’s work is the final exhibition space in the Arsenale, the main exhibition hall of the decentralized art exhibition. 

DeDeaux’s inclusion in the Biennale carries additional significance. In Minor Keys was conceived by Koyo Kouoh, the acclaimed curator who made history as the first African woman appointed Artistic Director of the Biennale. In 2023, prior to discussions of her involvement in the Biennale, Kouoh visited DeDeaux’s home compound, Camp Abundance, in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward. There, within the immersive environment of DeDeaux’s creation, the two shared conversations about art, life, and the questions that connect them. Kouoh personally selected DeDeaux for the exhibition before her unexpected passing in May 2025. Following her death, the Biennale’s curatorial team remained committed to realizing the exhibition in Kouoh’s vision, ensuring that her influence continues to shape the project.

The themes of DeDeaux’s work resonate strongly with Kouoh’s vision for In Minor Keys, which explores alternative ways of understanding history, memory, and our relationship to a changing world. DeDeaux approaches these questions through the lenses of environmental transformation, planetary time, and the cyclical processes through which destruction and renewal remain deeply intertwined.

DeDeaux’s inclusion in this landmark exhibition marks a significant moment in her decades-long career and reflects the growing international recognition of her work. Reflecting on the achievement, gallerist Arthur Roger notes, “I’ve had the honor of representing Dawn for over 30 years. I am not surprised that Dawn’s poetic interpretation of disaster resonates in Venice. The world is changing, and a good artist tells that story in new ways.”

The exhibition remains on view through November 22, 2026. Visitors traveling to Venice this year are encouraged to experience the installation in person.

For additional information about Dawn DeDeaux’s work or her Venice Biennale presentation, please contact the Arthur Roger Gallery.

Exhibited Works

	Dawn DeDeaux Dirt Bowl Table, 2021 Earth samples from around the world, turned wooden bowls, 10′ table
	Dawn DeDeaux Rising Water: New Orleans/Venice, 2025 Digital transparency on polished acrylic 118 x 16 inches
	Dawn DeDeaux Burnt Chimes: In Minor Keys for Koyo Kouoh, 2006-2026 Burnt wood Variable
	Dawn DeDeaux Studies of a Meteor in Motion, 2026 Charcoal and white pencil on archival paper 16 x 20 inches ea.
	Dawn DeDeaux Gulf to Galaxy, 2007-2026 Glass and mixed media 104 x 110 x 6 inches
	Dawn DeDeaux Floating Desk with Spinning Meteor, 2024-2026 Meteor, wooden desk, light
	Dawn DeDeaux Meteors Between Dead Moons, 2021-2026 Projection Variable
	Dawn DeDeaux The Witnesses Venice Version (The Vanquished Series), 2026 Digital drawing on Dibond 96 x 144 inches
	Dawn DeDeaux Dance I: The Gold Moon, 2022 Digital drawing on metal panel 80 x 96 1/4 inches