The Venice Biennale is back, and this year’s theme, “In Minor Keys,” comes with particular poignancy. The 61st edition was conceived by Koyo Kouoh, the Cameroonian director of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, who died last year before the exhibition opened. In her curatorial text, Kouoh wrote, “The time has come to listen to the minor keys, to tune in sotto voce to the whispers, to the lower frequencies … where the dignity of all living beings is safeguarded.” It is a line that now reads differently. This is the first Biennale to open from a curator’s fully realized vision after her death. There is one lighter contrast with the last edition, whose roster included an unusually high number of posthumous participants: almost all of this year’s 111 artists are alive. —Elena Clavarino