[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Russia-Venice-Pavilion.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tItalian culture minister Alessandro Giuli will not attend the opening of the Venice Biennale as a protest against the Russian Pavilion, which marks the country\u2019s return to the exhibition following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe news was announced in a statement from the Ministry of Culture, which noted that Giuli will neither travel to Venice for the preview of the exhibition nor attend its opening ceremony on May 9.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tRussia\u2019s reopening of its national pavilion\u2014with the approval of Venice Biennale director Pietrangelo Buttafuoco\u2014has sparked acrimony across the European art world and political sphere. Reflecting the internal divisions it has incited within Italy, Giuli previously called on the culture ministry\u2019s representative on the Biennale\u2019s board of directors, Tamara Gregoretti, to step down in response to the growing backlash.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn response, Gregoretti reiterated her support for Moscow\u2019s participation. \u201cI am serene and have no intention of resigning,\u201d she reportedly said, emphasizing the autonomy of the Biennale\u2019s board. Matteo Salvini has also voiced his support for Moscow\u2019s participation in the exhibition.<\/p>\n
\n\tEarlier this month, the European Union said it intended to cut funding to the Venice Biennale, an unprecedented rebuke of its decision to greenlight the Russian pavilion amid an invasion that has, to date, resulted in more than 15,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine. The EU reportedly contributes \u20ac2 million to each edition of the exhibition.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhile Russia bombs museums, destroys churches, and seeks to erase Ukrainian culture, it should not be allowed to exhibit its own,\u201d Kaja Kallas, vice president of the European Commission, said in a statement, describing the country\u2019s inclusion as \u201cmorally wrong.\u201d Ukraine, which also returns to the Venice Biennale this year, has sanctioned five individuals associated with the Russian pavilion and has lobbied to have the participants\u2019 visas revoked.<\/p>\n
\n\tDozens of artists in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale also decried Russia\u2019s involvement in an open letter demanding its exclusion, along with Israel and the United States, all of which were described as \u201ccurrent regimes committing war crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBiennale organizers have resolutely refused such demands, arguing that any state recognized as a nation in Italy is permitted to participate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe exhibition\u2019s jurors, however, appear to have partially conceded the point, recently announcing that they will not consider for nations whose leaders have been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court\u2014a move that effectively excludes Russia and Israel from award consideration.<\/p>\n
\n\tIssued the day after the jury was announced by the Venice Biennale, the statement spoke of \u201ca responsibility towards the historical role of the Biennale as a platform that connects art to the urgencies of its time.\u201d The jury, led by Solange Farkas, said it was committed to the \u201cdefense of human rights,\u201d in keeping with Koyo Kouoh\u2019s vision for the main exhibition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/italian-culture-minister-protest-venice-biennale-russia-1234782691\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Russia-Venice-Pavilion.jpg?w=1024″] Italian culture minister Alessandro Giuli will not attend the opening of the Venice Biennale as a protest against the Russian Pavilion, which marks the country\u2019s return to the exhibition following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.\u00a0 The news was announced in a statement from the Ministry of Culture, which noted that Giuli will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1906971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1906971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1906971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1906971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1906971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}