Florentina Holzinger’s Extreme Performance
At the Venice Biennale, one pavilion more than any other is attracting the attention of visitors, critics, and social media: Austria’s national pavilion, entrusted to artist Florentina Holzinger. Between endless queues, heated debates, and performances that are already sparking controversy across the contemporary art world, the project SEAWORLD VENICE is being considered one of the boldest and most provocative interventions of the 2026 Venice Biennale.
Since the opening days of the Biennale, the Austrian Pavilion has become one of the most visited spaces in Venice. Visitors often wait more than two hours to enter, while warning signs outside alert audiences that the performances may disturb sensitive viewers. Despite repeated requests not to take photographs or videos, images of the installation have spread rapidly online, helping turn the project into one of the most talked-about exhibitions of this year’s Biennale.
Austria Pavilion. Biennale Arte 2026 Venice. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
Florentina Holzinger Performance
Created by Florentina Holzinger, the work transforms the pavilion into an immersive and unstable environment where water, bodies, technology, and ritual symbols coexist in a dimension suspended between performance art and social critique. Curated by Nora-Swantje Almes of Berlin’s Gropius Bau, the project will remain open to the public from May 9 to November 22, 2026, for the entire duration of the Biennale.
One of the first performative moments to attract public attention was Opening Étude. In the days leading up to the opening of the Venice Biennale, a large church bell recovered from the Venetian lagoon was carried in procession to the Austrian Pavilion, where it now dominates the entrance, suspended by a crane. The object immediately evokes religious tradition and the symbolism of time, but it is reinterpreted by the artist in a critical and unsettling way.
Instead of a traditional clapper, a completely naked performer produces the bell’s rhythmic tolls using her own body. The action takes place every hour and lasts approximately four minutes. The performance questions structures of power connected to religion, patriarchal history, and institutional authority, transforming a collective symbol into a vulnerable and physical gesture.
Austria Pavilion. Biennale Arte 2026 Venice. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
Florentina Holzinger Performance
Inside the pavilion, visitors enter a completely flooded environment. This scenographic choice intentionally limits the number of people who can access the installation at the same time, contributing to the long queues outside. Within the water-filled space appears one of the project’s most iconic elements: a jet ski driven by a naked performer continuously moves through the exhibition following circular trajectories.
According to Florentina Holzinger, this intervention reflects on overtourism and the environmental fragility of Venice. The jet ski becomes a symbol of humanity’s attempt to dominate nature, while the lagoon city appears increasingly overwhelmed by mass tourism and climate change. The relationship between water, spectacle, and consumption becomes central to the entire artistic project.
In the second room, visitors encounter a gigantic vertical structure piercing through the architecture of the pavilion. Here, the artist replaces the traditional idea of a static monument with a female reinterpretation of the Deposition of Christ. Naked performers are attached to the structure, which rotates with the wind and surrounding movements. The image recalls the visual language of sacred sculpture while transforming it into a collective and constantly shifting presence.
Austria Pavilion. Biennale Arte 2026 Venice. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
Florentina Holzinger Performance
One of the most debated aspects of the project can be found in the pavilion’s courtyard. There, a performer lives permanently inside a tank supplied by a system that collects and purifies bodily fluids coming from the Biennale’s bathrooms. The recycled water is then used to sustain the environment in which the performer remains throughout the exhibition.
The installation addresses themes related to exploitation, inequality, and the management of waste generated by contemporary society. According to the artist, the system metaphorically reflects a global order in which the most vulnerable populations are forced to live among the leftovers produced by dominant economic systems. At the same time, the performer’s figure references Venetian art history, particularly the Sleeping Venus by Giorgione, creating a contrast between the historical beauty of Venice and its current environmental contradictions.
Florentina Holzinger’s artistic research belongs to the tradition of radical European performance art and openly references the legacy of Viennese Actionism, the artistic movement that emerged during the 1960s. In particular, her work is often associated with the practices of Hermann Nitsch because of its use of the body as a political, ritualistic, and performative tool.
Austria Pavilion. Biennale Arte 2026 Venice. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
Florentina Holzinger Performance
Like the historical experiences of Viennese Actionism, Holzinger’s performances push the physical and psychological limits of the body in order to expose systems of control, power structures, and forms of symbolic violence embedded within contemporary society. Her imagery is intentionally provocative, confrontational, and deeply unsettling.
SEAWORLD VENICE will not end with the Venice Biennale 2026. The project will continue evolving through adapted versions presented at major international institutions, including Gropius Bau in 2027, Kunsthalle Wien later that same year, and AMANT in 2028.
With its combination of performance, provocation, and environmental critique, the Austrian Pavilion has established itself as one of the most controversial and discussed spaces of the Venice Biennale 2026, dividing audiences while firmly imposing its imagery on the international contemporary art scene.
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