Velimir Zernovski is a visual artist whose practice moves between drawing, video, installation, public-space objects, writing, artists’ books and stage design. Across these formats, he examines the construction of identity, the experience of urban life and the circulation of images through popular culture. Questions of gender, inequality and exclusion have also shaped long-term bodies of work. Zernovski holds BA and MA degrees from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. His projects have been presented in solo exhibitions in Skopje, Belgrade, Vienna, Paris, Freiburg and New York, alongside international group exhibitions and collaborative cultural initiatives.
Zernovski represents North Macedonia at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026 with Pietà in the Emergency Blankets, presented at Ex Cappella Buon Pastore, Castello 77, from 9 May to 22 November. The installation reclothes the familiar sculptural configuration of the pietà in reflective gold emergency blankets. A material designed for protection becomes a marker of displacement, conflict and ecological crisis, shifting the work from a private image of grief towards questions of collective responsibility. Figures appear and recede beneath the crinkled surface, while permanence gives way to something provisional and exposed. Organised by the Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje and curated by Tihomir Topuzovski and Amanda Boetzkes, the pavilion extends Zernovski’s interest in how shared symbols acquire political and emotional force.