The Biennale Matter of Art is an interdisciplinary project that takes place every two years in Prague and other locations. The upcoming edition will run from 12 June to 13 September 2026, unfolding across multiple sites and bringing together artistic practices that respond to the social, political, and material conditions of the present.

The Biennale opens with an Opening Weekend from 11 to 14 June 2026, marking the official beginning of the 2026 edition. During these four days, a programme of performances, guided tours, book presentations, workshops, and other activities will take place across three venues in two cities—Prague and Pardubice, Czech Republic. The Opening Weekend offers an invitation to encounter the biennale at its point of emergence, framing the conversations and experiences that will continue to develop throughout the exhibition period.

The international exhibition and public programme will be held in three principal locations: The Great Hall of the Trade Fair Palace in Prague, GAMPA – City Gallery Pardubice, and Tusculum Prague.

The 2026 Biennale Matter of Art will bring together more than thirty artists and collectives, including six newly commissioned projects. Its fourth edition, titled »Necessary Wishes«, foregrounds artistic practices that arise from necessity—works shaped by reflexive, embodied engagement with the realities people inhabit in their everyday lives. Through this lens, the biennale positions art not only as representation, but as a lived response to the conditions of the world.

The Opening Weekend Programme

Marking the beginning of the biennale, the long weekend features more than a dozen items in its programme. All of the events of the Opening Weekend are accessible free of charge, as is the entire biennale exhibition. This initiative reflects the Biennale Matter of Art’s commitment to making culture accessible to everyone.

The programme will begin on Thursday, 11 June, at the principal venue of the biennale—the National Gallery Prague’s Trade Fair Palace. The opening ceremony will symbolically inaugurate the main section of the biennial exhibition at the Trade Fair Palace, which »proposes artistic form as a vehicle for solidarity and compassion, functioning as a carrier, proxy, and instrument for strengthening insurgent communities as much as addressing personal urgency.«

The night will unfold with two performances, one with warsaw-based artist Nadia Markiewicz , second with emerging Czech artist Michal Durda. An afterparty with DJs from the local community platform Shella Radio will cap off the evening.

The programme on Friday, 12 June, will begin with a guided tour of the biennale exhibition at the National Gallery, conducted by the curators and participating artists.

This will be followed by a performative presentation of a new book published by the tranzit.org network to mark its 20th anniversary, and then interdisciplinary artist Felipe Steinberg will take the stage for a performative lecture.

In the late afternoon, our attention will shift to Pardubice, a city situated an hour by train from Prague. The local City Gallery Pardubice GAMPA will host the opening of the second part of the biennale exhibition.

A guided tour led by curators and participating artists will explore this distinct section of the biennale, which presents art as a form of world-making, where a multitude of visions, speculations, and imaginaries come together in an intergenerational dialogue.

To wrap up the evening there will be a performance by artist and DJ Seba Kayan, who blends European and Kurdish roots.

The programme for Saturday, 13 June, starts in the National Gallery with the inaugural collective reading of kroužek intersekce—a grassroots collective providing space for mutual learning and radical imagination.

The afternoon programme is dedicated to a project by the StonyTellers collective at the third venue of the biennale—the Tusculum studio and residency center, which the cultural and artistic platform Petrohradská kolektiv has been developing since 2023 on the grounds of the historic Chittussi Hospital.

The project »In the Garden« builds on the StonyTellers collective’s long-standing community practice. It involves a newly established vegetable garden that is part of the outdoor space at the Tusculum complex.

As part of the third opening day of the biennale, Tusculum will host the first in a series of workshops which will take place here over the course of the biennale’s three-month programme.

The workshop will be followed by a happening featuring food and music by the Warsaw-based collective GALAS, which is composed primarily of Ukrainian artists. The collective’s formation in response to the war can be seen as an intuitive response to involuntary displacement and separation.

The weekend programme culminates in a Sunday morning guided tour of the exhibition at the National Gallery. Besides the events of the opening weekend, the biennale exhibition will be accessible during regular opening hours across all venues of the biennale starting Thursday, 12 June.

For further programme details and information on venues, please visit: Matter of Art

Header Image: National Gallery Prague – Trade Fair Palace © Tomas Slavik