Venice Biennale claims to be neutral – but no art exhibition has ever been neutral

The 1974 Venice Biennale went down in history not so much for what was on display but for what was not on display: the exhibition itself. There are various explanations for why the exhibition did not take place. Some reports attributed the show’s cancellation to embarrassing divisions between Italy’s warring factions. Others follow the narrative of then-biennale president Carlo Ripa di Meana, a socialist who said he closed the exhibition as a means of political engagement.

Of course, the project he made looks more like a protest than a traditional art exhibition – which is probably why the Biennale doesn’t consider the show an official version at all. (The 36th exhibition in the history of the Biennale was held in 1972, and the 37th in 1976.) The initiative was dubbed the “New Biennale” by Ripa di Meana and was explicitly labeled “anti-fascist” and planned as a campaign against Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet, a dictator who came to power after a military coup in Chile the previous year. Rather than showcasing fresh paintings and large-scale sculptures, the Biennale featured posters denouncing fascism around the world in public spaces. The show’s official title is “Libertà al Cile,” or “Freedom of Chile,” and its political character cannot be ignored. Ripa di Mina herself called the Biennale “an expression of conscientious solidarity and democratic faith.” Fast forward 52 years, and this gesture is now unthinkable.

The biennale has spent much of this month trying to position itself as a nonpartisan arbiter in an increasingly volatile world. The 2026 Biennale continued to face the wrath of international politicians this week after it confirmed that its 99 national pavilions would include one for Russia, which has not exhibited at the biennale since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

On Wednesday, 22 senior dignitaries representing European countries from France to Poland signed an open letter to the Latvian-initiated biennale. The letter called the Russian presence “deeply disturbing” and said the museum “raises serious questions about the risks of state-led cultural diplomacy under the guise of artistic exchange.” Ukraine and Lithuania have issued condemnations, with the former writing that the biennale could soon become “an arena for whitewashing Russia’s war crimes committed every day”, while the EU has threatened to stop funding the exhibition. Thousands of artists and curators have signed another open letter calling for Russia to be kicked out of the biennale altogether. “The ‘culture over politics’ narrative has never been neutral,” the letter reads.

This alludes to a statement on the matter issued by the Biennale earlier this month, which said the fair would accept applications for pavilions from any country recognized by Italy. Failure to do so amounts to cultural repression, the biennale said. “In response to requests for communication and participation from various countries, the Venice Biennale rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art,” the exhibition said in a statement.

While the statement is new, it echoes an older one issued in 2024, when groups such as the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) protested the presence of Israel, which began its brutal military bombing of Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack. (Palestine has never had an official biennial pavilion because Italy does not recognize it as a country.) The Iranian pavilion also came under scrutiny that year: a massive protest movement against the country’s oppressive regime led some to call for its expulsion. In response, the Biennale told The Art Newspaper It “may not consider any petition or call that excludes participation by Israel or Iran” because those countries applied on their own. (Artist Ruth Patil eventually closed her Israel pavilion and called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Hamas hostages; the Iran pavilion remains on display.)

The Biennale said in a statement that it had not made a request to close the Russian pavilion in 2022. Here’s the thing: the decision came from artists and curators representing Russia that year, who called the war in Ukraine “unbearable.” But the Biennale also paid no attention to the exhibition have Participate in the conflict of that year by creating Piazza Ucraina, a special exhibition held outdoors in support of Ukraine. A press release announcing the show said the purpose of establishing Ukraine Square was to “stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people in the wake of the Russian government’s brutal invasion and to create a space for debate, dialogue and support for Ukrainian culture.” This gesture is reminiscent of 1974’s “Libertà al Cile”, albeit on a smaller scale.

In fact, “freedom” was even investigated in an exhibition organized by the Biennale in 2020, which recounted “the moment when historical events exploded into the most important art exhibition in the world,” as then-biennale president Roberto Cicutto put it. He noted in 2022 that these moments were “not unique” and that Russia’s war in Ukraine was one of them.

Will the Biennale no longer recognize those moments? It certainly seems so. The exhibition has never issued a press release about the 2024 Israeli and Iranian pavilions, and has so far not responded specifically to the controversy over the 2026 Russian pavilion, as the “exclusion” announcement preceded a wave of open letters. How the Biennale could maintain a neutral position in all this is difficult to imagine, especially since other institutions of equal stature do not maintain a similar position. Biennales, for example, are often called the Olympics of the art world. But even the Olympics are banned from Russia from 2022 because, as the IOC said the following year, the country violated the Olympic Charter by trying to accommodate athletes from regions it invaded. (If the Biennale has any similar charter, it has not yet been released to the public. A Biennale spokesperson did not respond art newsRequest for comment. )

This suggests that it might be time for the Biennale to do some thinking, not just about what is on display but also about its role in the wider world. As the art historian Vittoria Martini noted in a 2024 article, Italian newspapers after the war dubbed the Biennale the “United Nations of Art,” suggesting that the exhibition functioned as an international congress. Maybe this show should start functioning like a drama, too. The United Nations, for example, has an ethics committee that mediates disputes among members of the General Assembly. Perhaps it’s time, then, for the Biennale to convene a similar panel.

Of course, something similar is necessary this year, not least because the Biennale is expected to see more pushback. Anga wrote in an article allergic A column in February said the group planned to call for another protest against the Israeli pavilion, accusing Israel of “committing barbaric crimes against humanity in full view of the world.” The dissident Russian collective Pussy Riot has pledged to protest against Russia at the biennale, and the U.S. pavilion is likely to come under considerable scrutiny given the country’s repeated military actions in Iran and Lebanon in collaboration with Israel. (That’s not even mentioning the U.S. attack on Caracas in January and the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, an act condemned by many governments in Latin America and Europe.)

All of this goes to show that the Biennale cannot exist apart from everything going on around it – something President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco even hinted at when he said that the 2026 Biennale, curated by Koyo Kouoh, is about “the joy of real art, which resembles so faithfully real life”. If art is truly so close to real life, the Biennale needs to recognize that the global upheaval does not end on its occasion.