[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/venicecity.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
To receive\u00a0Morning Links\u00a0in your inbox every weekday,\u00a0sign\u00a0up\u00a0for our\u00a0<\/em>Breakfast with ARTnews\u00a0newsletter<\/em>.<\/p>\n Good morning!<\/strong><\/p>\n RUSSIA ROW.<\/strong>\u00a0The organizers of\u00a0Venice Biennale<\/strong>\u00a0and the\u00a0Russian Pavilion<\/strong>\u00a0commissioner discussed plans to open the latter\u2019s exhibition during the Biennale\u2019s vernissage and then close it to the public once the international exhibition debuts on May 9, according to multiple reports in Italian media. The \u201creduced\u201d participation appears to have been a solution for complying with European sanctions that prohibit financial support or direct collaboration with state-backed Russian entities, according to Italian media\u00a0Open<\/em>, which first published emails between the Biennale Foundation president\u00a0Pietrangelo Buttafucoco,\u00a0<\/strong>Biennale general director\u00a0Andrea Del Mercato<\/strong>, and Russian Pavilion commissioner\u00a0Anastasia Karneeva<\/strong>. Those messages outline a project to have Russian artists perform in the pavilion from May 5\u20138\u00a0and then install multimedia documentation of those performances, to be seen from windows outside the closed pavilion. The messages date back as early as June 2025 and suggest the Biennale organizers worked to help Russian artists obtain visas. In an\u00a0Il Giornale\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0report yesterday, Biennale organizers insisted they \u201cacted in strict compliance with applicable national and international laws and within the limits of its own powers and responsibilities. No prohibition of European sanctions were circumvented, as stated by journalistic reports\u2026We are therefore astonished that such distorted reports emerged from the review of internal documents.\u201d<\/p>\n GOUDEAU AT THE GOLDEN GATE<\/strong>. San Francisco Mayor\u00a0Daniel Lurie<\/strong>\u00a0has just hired\u00a0Matthew Goudeau<\/strong>\u00a0as the city\u2019s executive director of arts and culture, a job that didn\u2019t exist until now, reports\u00a0KQED\u00a0<\/em>. The newly created, \u201ccomplex\u201d position will entail serving as the mayor\u2019s \u201cprincipal advisor\u201d on arts and culture policies and overseeing the city\u2019s three public art agencies: the\u00a0SF Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts<\/strong>, and the\u00a0Film Commission<\/strong>. Goudeau is the current chief development officer for\u00a0Yerba Buena Center for the Arts<\/strong>. The announcement comes amid painful closures of arts institutions and schools around town. \u201cOur arts community has been holding a lot of anxiety because of many uncertainties in the sector, largely centered on the city\u2019s role in the arts ecosystem. This hire was among the top concerns, and now we can cross it off our list,\u201d said\u00a0Rachelle Axel<\/strong>, executive director of\u00a0Artists for a Better Bay Area<\/strong>, speaking to reporters yesterday.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter the attack at a press gala in Washington D.C. on Saturday, Republican leaders are calling for the swift approval of\u00a0President Trump\u2019<\/strong>s planned White House ballroom, due to safety reasons. [The New York Times]<\/p>\n \n\tNorth Korea has built a \u201cMemorial Museum of Military Operations Abroad and Combat Successes\u201d in honor of the country\u2019s soldiers who died fighting with Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. [State news agency KCNA]<\/p>\n Tuan Andrew Nguyen<\/strong>\u2019s 25-foot sandstone Buddha sculpture, in homage to statues destroyed in Afghanistan by the Taliban, has opened on New York\u2019s\u00a0High Line Plinth<\/strong>. [ArtDependence]<\/p>\n \n\tArtist and curator\u00a0Liu Ding<\/strong>\u00a0and art historian\u00a0Carol Yinghua Lu<\/strong>\u00a0will curate the 19th\u00a0edition of the\u00a0Istanbul Biennial<\/strong>, running September 18 to November 14, 2027. [Artforum]<\/p>\n Philippe Fouqui\u00e9<\/strong>, co-founder of a beloved multi-disciplinary art space\u00a0La Friche la Belle-de-Mai<\/strong>\u00a0in Marseille, has died at 82. [Le Monde]<\/p>\n \n\tThe\u00a0Barjeel Art Foundation<\/strong>\u00a0has begun construction on a new modern and contemporary art museum in Sharjah, UAE, with plans to open by January, 2028. [ArtAsiaPacific]<\/p>\n BROKEN MIRRORS<\/strong>. Tehran-based sculptor\u00a0Aref Montazeri<\/strong>\u2019s career was on an upward trajectory until bombs began to fall around him nearly two months ago, reports the\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0<\/em>. The 39-year-old artist was finally gaining recognition abroad for his contorted, geometric sculptures made of thousands of hand-cut mirror shards reaching as high as 27 feet. Now, however, simply getting art supplies is a challenge, as his life and career have been upended by the regional war. A planned exhibition at New York\u2019s\u00a0Leila Heller<\/strong>\u00a0gallery has been indefinitely postponed, and his own travel is severely restricted. But the artist says he has not given up. \u201cI always arrive at the studio early in the morning,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing, not even war, should prevent us from pursuing what we aim for.\u201d He later added: \u201cI may not be able to control everything, but the studio remains a place where I can hold on to hope.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/venice-biennale-russian-pavilion-emails-morning-links-april-28-2026-1234782819\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/venicecity.jpg?w=1024″] To receive\u00a0Morning Links\u00a0in your inbox every weekday,\u00a0sign\u00a0up\u00a0for our\u00a0Breakfast with ARTnews\u00a0newsletter. Good morning! Emails between Venice Biennale organizers and the Russian Pavilion commissioner reveal plans to close the latter pavilion to the public after the vernissage. Matthew Goudeau has become San Francisco\u2019s first executive director of arts and culture.\u00a0 Republicans argue the attack […]<\/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-1906986","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\/1906986","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=1906986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1906986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1906986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1906986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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