Manuel Mathieu

Manuel Mathieu presents his work in the Giardini and Arsenale venues of Koyo Kouoh’s 61st International Art Exhibition, In Minor Keys. Marking a major milestone in his international career, the Haitian-Canadian artist will unveil in Venice the full range of his artistic practice, including paintings, ceramics, mosaics, and the immersive installation Pendulum - his award-winning short film - with fabric sculptures and olfactory art. 

Deeply aligned with the In Minor Keys theme, Manuel Mathieu’s recurring ideas explore the tension between past and present, between personal and political dimensions. He engages with Haiti’s complex history and ongoing struggles, creating a laboratory in which abstraction and olfactory perception make it possible to imagine the spiritual connections that shape empathy, where personal histories expand into collective memory. 

In the Arsenale section, he will present an immersive installation anchored by Pendulum, winner of the Best Short Film Award at the 2023 International Festival of Films on Art, bringing together life-size fabric figures and an olfactive diffusion system that permeates the entire space. The short film explores the equilibrium between past and future through a spiritual narrative: a woman who serves as a knowledge keeper transmits the liberation of her spirit, setting in motion a poetic choreography of resistance and transformation. In this new installation, Pendulum introduces olfactory art as a non-visual register of encounter, activating memory, intimacy, and duration, while reinforcing its sensory and affective depth. 

In the Giardini section, Mathieu will exhibit a selection of ceramics, paintings, and mosaics, including the large-scale mosaic Abundance and Drought (2024), his ceramic ensemble Physicality (2023), paintings such as In the Heart of the Revolution II (2025), Self Preservation (2025), The Veil (2025), and La fenêtre (2025), as well as his most recent work, GENOCIDE (2026).