The upcoming Venice Biennale will have its first Russian pavilion since the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022, but few outside Russia seem happy about it.
Ukraine issued a strongly worded statement about the pavilion this weekend, calling for Russia to be excluded from the biennale this time.
“The Venice Biennale is one of the most authoritative art platforms in the world,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiha wrote in a statement posted on social media. “It must not become a stage for whitewashing Russia’s war crimes committed every day against the Ukrainian people and our cultural heritage.”
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Sibiha went on to say that Russia “openly uses culture as a tool of political influence” and accused the biennale of betraying past support for Ukraine. He was probably referring to how the 2022 Biennale will install a Ukrainian-themed installation in Giardini Park (the park where the Russian pavilion is located). A statement from the Biennale unequivocally condemned what the exhibition described as “a barbaric invasion by the Russian state.”
Russia has not participated in the Venice Biennale since 2019. In 2022, the museum will be closed to the public. It opens in 2024, but Bolivia, a country that has been seeking to maintain diplomatic ties with Russia, is exhibiting there. For this reason, Russia is trying to claim that its 2026 pavilion, which features a range of artists in an exhibition curated by Anastasia Karneeva, is not a return but part of an effort to continue “looking for new forms of creative activity in the current circumstances,” as one Russian official previously said art news.
In 2024, under pressure to expel Israel and Iran, the Biennale said it had no right to exclude national pavilions because “all countries recognized by the Italian Republic can autonomously request official participation.” As a result, the Biennale claimed that it could not “consider any petition.” art news The Biennale has been contacted for comment whether this is still the case.
The Biennale also said in 2024 that the decision to close the Russian pavilion in 2022 was made by its curators, not the Biennale itself. Curator Raimundas Malašauskas quit, along with artists Kirill Savchenkov and Alexandra Sukhareva, issuing a joint statement calling the war in Ukraine “politically and emotionally unbearable.”
Ukraine’s announcement coincided with the circulation of an open letter that also called for the Biennale to cancel its Russian pavilion. The letter, addressed to Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, claimed that Russia’s inclusion tarnished the exhibition’s non-partisan image.
“The ‘culture over politics’ narrative has never been neutral,” the letter reads. “In the case of contemporary Russia, this formula has become a political tool used to promote aggression and advance the national agenda while hiding it behind the language of cultural exchange and dialogue.”
Signatories include Pina Picierno, an Italian politician who serves as Vice President of the European Parliament, and Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, a collector who runs an art space in Venice. Signatories also include artists Ragnar Kjartansson, Tomás Saraceno and Nadya Tolokonnikova, a member of the Russian dissident group Pussy Riot.
Pussy Riot itself teased the protests against the Russian pavilion, writing on Instagram: “Pussy Riot is coming to the Biennale with an intervention. We want to express our unconditional support for Ukraine, the victims of Russian war crimes, Russian political prisoners and Ukrainian prisoners of war.”
The statements followed condemnation from Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys, who wrote on social media last week: “Nothing can return to normal for murderers and terrorists.” He called the biennale’s choice of Russia to participate “abhorrent.”
