VENICE.- Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg, appointed Commissioner of the Luxembourg pavilions at the Venice Art and Architecture biennials by the Ministry of Culture, and Casino Luxembourg—Forum d'art contemporain, curator of the 2026 and 2028 Biennales, have selected artist Aline Bouvy and the curator Stilbé Schroeder to produce the exhibition at the Luxembourg pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale, which will run from 9 May to 22 November 2026.

Statement by the commissioner and curator

By selecting Aline Bouvy, Kultur | lx and Casino Luxembourg seek, above all, to honour and showcase the artist's 25-year long career. Aline Bouvy has built an international career that has been tremendously consistent in artistic terms whilst also making successfully bold choices that always surprise. Refusing to restrict herself to expected norms or make compromises, Bouvy explores a range of techniques, creating a body of work that is dense and polymorphic, unfolding over time, fed by constant research, individual and group exhibitions, artist residencies and international collaborations.

Casino Luxembourg has followed Aline Bouvy's work for many years, and she has been part of several group exhibitions at the institution. This longstanding relationship, built on mutual trust, was further strengthened through the preparation of her first institutional solo show in Luxembourg, Hot Flashes, curated by Stilbé Schroeder and on view until October 12. Aline Bouvy’s selection for the 61th International Venice Biennale is grounded in strong artistic and personal foundations, essential for undertaking a collaboration of this scale.

2026 will be the 30th anniversary year for Casino Luxembourg—Forum d’art contemporain, a leading cultural institution that has already helped organise Luxembourg's presence in Venice, having been actively involved in 7 pavilions. In recent years, Casino Luxembourg has also served as an important space for monograph exhibitions by artists from Luxembourg included in its artistic programming, and also by inviting and supporting many artists to take part in exhibitions and projects with international partner institutions. Showcasing national contemporary artists is thus at the heart of Casino Luxembourg’s work. Supporting artists during events like the Venice Biennale is therefore an honour that enhances and complements Casino Luxembourg's initiatives to develop and promote artists.

Aline Bouvy performing in Luxembourg

As part of the Hot Flashes exhibition at Casino Luxembourg, Aline Bouvy will present the performance Letter to a Young Alien on the occasion of Museum Night, scheduled for Saturday, October 11 at 8:30pm.

Inspired by Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, this performance transposes intimate correspondence into a message addressed to an extraterrestrial recipient, a radically other figure, foreign to our codes and norms. This letter becomes the space for an unlikely exchange, both personal and universal, exploring the shifting boundaries between self and other, childhood and adulthood.

Born in 1974 in Watermael-Boitsfort (Belgium), Aline Bouvy is a visual artist whose work touches on the universal. Her art acts as a tool for questioning bodies, spaces, and norms, subverting conventions while drawing on a feminist vision. Aline Bouvy studied at the ERG – École de Recherche Graphique in Brussels, then at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. Among her solo exhibitions, Cruising Bye at MACS Grand Hornu in Charleroi in 2022 constitutes the largest collection of her works shown to date. Recently, her work has been shown at Triangle-Astérides in Marseille (2024), Kunsthal Gent in Ghent (2021), New Space in Liège (2020), and Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (2019).

After living, studying, and working in Brussels and Strasbourg, Stilbé Schroeder (b. 1985, Luxembourg) returned to Luxembourg in 2015 and joined Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain as exhibition coordinator. In 2017 and 2019, she was assistant curator of the Luxembourg pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Since 2023, she is head of exhibitions and curator, participating in the reflections and constitution of the institution’s exhibition programme.