“In Minor Keys” is the only biennial in memory that’s made me find a dark corner to cry in. The Arsenale opens with a poem on the wall by Refaat Alareer, written before he was killed by the Israeli military in Gaza in 2023. “If I must die / you must live,” he writes, “to tell my story / to sell my things / to buy a piece of cloth and some strings,” to assemble a white kite that might serve as a symbol of hope for a child somewhere in Gaza, floating in the sky. The strongest threads of the show take up the poem’s themes of perseverance and play—with our tragic times always heavily present, but more as exposition: looming backdrops against which artists imagine the worlds to come. It’s a show not only about surviving against the odds, but thriving through them. It aims, per the wall text, to “nurture society” and provide “spiritual rest.” Related Articles It was Guadalupe Maravilla’s sculptures that first choked me up.…