Luxembourg Brings "La Merde" to Venice, and a Budget Fight Follows It Home

Luxembourg inaugurated its national pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia on 7 May 2026, presenting "La Merde," an immersive audiovisual installation by the artist Aline Bouvy. The exhibition opened to the public on 9 May and runs until 22 November 2026 in the Arsenale's Sale d'Armi, on Campo della Tana.

According to Kultur|lx – Arts Council Luxembourg, which was appointed commissioner by the Ministry of Culture, the work combines a film, a spatialised sound composition and a mirror-glassed steel architecture that reorganises where the viewer stands in the room. At its centre is an anthropomorphic excrement figure, appearing as puppet, animation, trace and embodied presence, used to interrogate shame as a social mechanism and to ask how bodies are classified, tolerated, disciplined or pushed out of view. The pavilion was produced by Casino Luxembourg – Forum d'art contemporain and curated by Stilbé Schroeder, its head of exhibitions, with assistance from Thibaud Leplat.

An artist working with "something real"

Bouvy, born in 1974 in Watermael-Boitsfort, Belgium, and now living and working between Brussels and Luxembourg, has described the project as drawing on a long interest in the politics of waste. She told ArtReview that the piece reflects "the symbolic, political and affective power of waste, as well as on the ways affirmative abjection, humor and excess can be deployed to reflect on the conditions of the present."

She rejects the idea that the subject is mere shock. In an interview with Paperjam, she said:

Being an artist, for me, is always about engaging with something real. I never aim to provoke for the sake of provocation.

A row over €540,000

Back in Luxembourg, the pavilion's title and subject have set off a political dispute. Alexandra Schoos, an ADR deputy and vice-president of the party, filed a parliamentary question challenging the project's €540,000 budget, citing the country's budgetary situation, social challenges and tax burden, and raising concerns about how the work reflects on Luxembourg's image abroad.

Per the ministry's breakdown, roughly 66 percent of that sum covers production, transport, assembly and team travel, 12 percent goes to communication, 8 percent to organisation, 7 percent to artist fees and 7 percent to the official opening.

Thill defends the spending and the freedom

Culture Minister Éric Thill, who attended the 7 May opening before roughly 300 guests, defended both the budget and the principle behind it. As reported by Delano, he set the figure against other countries' 2024 pavilions: about CHF 550,000 for Switzerland, around €650,000 for Germany, roughly €660,000 for Austria and about €1.2 million for Italy. He noted the €540,000 sits on an upward path, after €418,600 in 2023, €494,100 in 2024 and €521,400 in 2025.

Thill also framed the work as a matter of artistic freedom, arguing that the ministry's commitment to freedom of artistic expression is essential and must be defended, particularly in geopolitical contexts that may constrain or instrumentalise creation. The opening drew international figures, including Ukraine's vice prime minister and culture minister, Tetyana Berezhna, and the Flemish culture minister, Caroline Gennez.

Luxembourg has taken part in the Venice Art Biennale since 1988, and in 2003 the artist Su-Mei Tse won the Golden Lion for best national pavilion. For 2026, the country's contribution arrives wrapped in a debate the minister insists art is meant to provoke, not to settle.