The 61st Venice Biennale opened Saturday in a chaotic atmosphere marked by geopolitical strife, overshadowing what draws people to the world-renowned festival: the contemporary art on display.
In tandem with the opening, dozens of artists announced their withdrawal from awards consideration — the latest in a wave of protests surrounding the international art event that has historically celebrated the likes of Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, and Jackson Pollock.
Laurie Anderson, Alfredo Jaar and Zoe Leonard are among the high-profile signatories who backed the statement of withdrawal, along with such national pavilions as France, Ecuador and the United Arab Emirates.
“We do so in solidarity with the resignation of the jury,” the statement said, alluding to the mass resignation, on Apr. 30, of the entire five-member Biennale awards jury.
The resignation of jury members Solange Farkas, Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma and Giovanna Zapperi, occurred days after they announced they would not award prizes — including the prestigious Golden Lion for best national pavilion — to countries whose governments or leaders have been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, including Israel and Russia.
This year, the Biennale announced ticket-holders to the event will get to choose the winners through an anonymous email-voting process. Award recipients are expected to be announced on Nov. 22, the Biennale’s closing day.
Featuring work by hundreds of artists from across the globe, the prestigious event typically attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to a slew of national pavilions organized and partially funded by the participating countries’ governments.
Rowdy protests on the streets of Venice
The event has also been beset by multiple large, public demonstrations in the streets of Venice.
On Thursday, the art collective Pussy Riot protested Russia’s return to the art festival by storming the country’s pavilion in bright pink balaclava hats, set off smoke flares and chanted the slogan “No Putin in Venice.” Russia had not been invited to the event since 2022.
Thousands of demonstrators also took to the streets on Friday to protest Israel’s presence at the event over the war in Gaza. Some pavilions, including those belonging to Japan, Finland and the UK, shuttered for hours while artists and curators joined the march. According to The Guardian, the Israeli pavilion was closed on Friday morning — but that was owing to a private event.
Other countries have also been caught up in the geopolitical wrangling over the war in Gaza.
In January, the South African pavilion was canceled after its culture minister requested that artist Gabrielle Goliath edit her work to remove tributes to a Palestinian poet killed in Gaza. The artist refused, and that pavilion now stands empty.
Australia’s artist, Khaled Sabsabi, and curator Michael Dagostino, were dropped in February by the country’s governmental arts advisory body after right-wing politicians accused them of antisemitism, only to be reinstated following backlash from the arts community.
Calls for a U.S. ban
Anti-U.S. sentiment has also led to calls for the U.S. to be banned from the festival due to its growing involvement in recent global conflicts.
“The current conditions demand that La Biennale di Venezia exclude any official delegation from current regimes committing war crimes, including Israel, Russia, and the United States,” said an open letter signed by 74 artists and curators sent in March to Biennale director Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and reprinted on the online art platform e-flux.
Jessica Kreps, a U.S.-based gallerist at the Biennale, told NPR that she has been attending the event on and off for around 20 years. She said politics felt more present in the run-up to this year’s event than in previous years.
“The Biennale should be a place for respectful dialogue,” said Kreps, a partner in the New York-based Lehmann Maupin gallery, which represents four artists at this year’s Biennale, and has offices in London and Seoul. “In many ways, that freedom of expression and critique is inherently democratic and very much part of what being American is about. Our focus as a U.S. gallery remains on supporting artists and creating space for thoughtful dialogue and differing viewpoints.”
Still, the protests didn’t disrupt her from experiencing the event. “I feel like I was still able to see everything,” she said. “It wasn’t that there were people blocking your way from going anywhere.”
A history of unrest
Like other international events, such as the Eurovision Song Contest and the Olympic Games, the Venice Bienniale has attracted numerous protests over the years.
The 34th Biennale in 1968 took place against the backdrop of global student uprisings. Protesters occupied Venice’s St. Mark’s Square and clashed with police, denouncing the Biennale as a “bourgeois” and “capitalist” institution.
In 1974, following the military coup in Chile that ousted Salvador Allende the year prior, the Biennale’s Allende-sympathizing, socialist then-director, Carlo Ripa di Meana, made the unprecedented decision to cancel the national pavilions for that year. He opted instead to focus the event on democracy and social change rather than national representation. The national pavilions made a comeback in 1976.
And in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the curators and artists of the Russian Pavilion resigned, stating there was “no place for art when civilians are dying.” The Russian Pavilion remained padlocked and guarded by Italian police for the duration of the fair, and the Biennale organized a temporary monument dedicated to Ukrainian artists.
The Biennale did not respond to NPR’s request for comment about this year’s unrest.
