The fourth edition of the Biennale Matter of Art, entitled Necessary Wishes will take place from June 12 to September 13, 2026. The international exhibition and public program 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 project is cocurated by Jaroslava Tomanová, Jakub Gawkowski, and František Fekete. You can get to know the curators here.

The public opening ceremony will take place on June 11, and the opening weekend program will continue until Sunday, June 14, with performances, guided tours, and other events. Subscribe to our newsletter, where we will remind you of everything in time.

The last day to view the complete exhibition across all three venues will be September 13, 2026. The exhibition at GAMPA Pardubice will continue until September 26.

The exhibition will be open to the public free of charge for its entire duration, which is part of the broader efforts of the tranzit.cz initiative to mediate art to a wider audience.

More than 30 art projects will be presented at the Biennale, including six new art commissions produced by Noor Abed, David Apakidze, Yana Bachynska / Jan Bačynsjkyj, Adrián Kriška, Aliza Orlan, and Tadamun Kolektiv.

The biennale is organized by the nonprofit initiative for contemporary art tranzit.cz in cooperation with the National Gallery Prague and the City Gallery Pardubice. The authors of the visual identity for the Biennale Matter of Art 2026 are Martin Czeller and Andrea Vacovská.

The curatorial approach draws on the notion of necessity as the vital force and political guiding principle behind one’s decisions. Art as a necessity appears as neither an aesthetic choice, a commodity, nor a professionalised activity but rather as an instinctive, embodied response to lived conditions—something unavoidable and embedded in the very structure of daily life and its politics.

“Necessity may take the form of protest—as a means of survival and a manifestation of life—but it may also appear as an intimate gesture, an escape from visibility, or a turning inward toward the self. This year’s biennale 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. These practices sustain relationships from within, amplify silenced voices, and nourish hope by calling allies to action in response to oppression. Necessity is about learning to live with contradictions, embracing an irresistible rhythm, and navigating the choreographies of limitations. Art born of necessity is thus also an art of the poetics of reduction, involving not-doing as well as practices of restraint, refusal, boycott, and withdrawal,” the curators say in a joint statement.