Spanish Pavilion 2026: Oriol Vilanova, Los Restos

The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation are pleased to announce Los restos by artist Oriol Vilanova, curated by Carles Guerra, as the project selected to represent Spain at the 61st International Venice Biennale.

Los restos draws on an extensive collection of postcards the artist has gathered over twenty years from flea markets and second-hand shops. These fragments of personal correspondence, often overlooked or discarded, embody the ruins of a past era. An exploration of memory, fragility, and the cultural significance of what endures, Los restos transforms this accumulation into a meditation on what we choose to preserve and what remains when stories are filtered through everyday objects. The Spanish Pavilion will present this collection as an evolving ‘anti-museum’, where modest yet sustained gestures of gathering become a powerful response to our present concerns about preservation, accumulation, and the economies associated to cultural value. The selection of Los restos was carried out by an independent jury convened by the Spanish Agency for International Development and Cooperation (AECID), and Acción Cultural Española (AC/E). The jury was composed of: Santiago Herrero Amigo, Director of Cultural and Scientific Relations of AECID; Inma Ballesteros, Director of Programming at AC/E; Manuel Segade, Director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS); Agustín Pérez Rubio, curator of the Spanish Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2024; Imma Prieto, Director of the Museu Antoni Tàpies; Tania Pardo, Director of the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M); Santiago Olmo, Director of the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (CGAC); Rosa Olivares, Editor and Founder of EXIT magazine; and artist Ignasi Aballí, who represented Spain at the Biennale Arte 2022.

What to expect:
Installation