New Orleans native Dawn DeDeaux brings nine works, spanning multiple decades, to the Venice Biennale, illustrating environmental instability, catastrophe, and extinction told through sculpture, installation, video, and photography. 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 Veneziae 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.
Featured prominently within the exhibition is DeDeaux’s installation Studies of a Meteor: Time & Space, which brings together Two Moons (2021–2026), a projection of two revolving “dead” moons interrupted by an incoming asteroid, and Meteor Study Desk (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. Together, these works connect planetary and local histories while continuing DeDeaux’s long-running examination of climate change, environmental vulnerability, and the future of coastal regions such as South Louisiana and Venice.
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 disarray brought by the storm, DeDeaux saw immense beauty in the fruits of catastrophe that lay at peace 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 possibility of finding moments of beauty amid devastation.
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’s work approaches these questions through the lens of coastal vulnerability, environmental transformation, and planetary time.
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.
