Lives of the Artists

Venice Agendas 2026–27: Lives of the Artists

How do artists survive today — and how can art remain relevant in a world shaped by AI, misinformation and global funding cuts?

Venice Agendas 2026–27: Lives of the Artists is a year-long, artist-led public programme examining the realities of making art in the 21st century. Launching during the Venice Biennale press days (6–8 May 2026), the project brings together artists, curators and cultural workers from around the world to speak openly about precarity, pay, speculative labour, visibility and the struggle to create demand in an overcrowded cultural economy.

At a time when artists are expected to produce without security, when institutions face political pressure, and when public funding is being dismantled across the world, Lives of the Artists asks urgent questions about who gets to build a sustainable artistic life — and who is pushed out.

Through recorded conversations, public debates, commissioned writing, podcasts and a limited-edition newspaper, the project creates a platform for independent, free-speaking dialogue about the future of contemporary art. All content will be made freely available online as a permanent public resource.

Inspired by Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists and Terry Smith’s 1977 Artscribe article BA Means Goodbye, the project marks fifty years of asking the same question: how do artists survive — and what does society lose when they cannot?

Lives of the Artists is led by artist Terry Smith and curator Mark Segal, bringing together over six decades of combined experience across international practice, public institutions, artist advocacy and independent culture