[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/artist-protestors-biennale.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Venice Biennale opened for its professional pre-opening on Tuesday, and artists participating in the exhibition wasted no time making their voices heard. At noon, around 60 artists and a few dozen other participants gathered for an action protesting Israel\u2019s participation in the event and protested in support of Palestine.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor the action, titled \u201cSolidarity Drone Chorus,\u201d the artists gathered at the entrance to the Giardini and hummed \u201cDrone Song,\u201d a viral song composed by Gazan composer and music teacher Ahmed \u201cMuin\u201d Abu Amsha, in order to \u201csonically occupy space,\u201d according to press materials. They then moved in a procession to the Central Pavilion.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe sound of drones is so heavy and present on a daily basis in Gaza,\u201d artist Carolina Caycedo told ARTnews<\/em> after the action. The song and the humming were meant \u201cto bring to the Biennale a little bit of the reality that people in Gaza suffer every day, and resist every day.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe action, according to Caycedo, was organized by artists in the main exhibition over the last several months, following on from the activist group Art Not Genocide Alliance\u2019s open letter published in March demanding that the Venice Biennale prevent Israel from participating in this year\u2019s exhibition. That letter has been signed by nearly 200 artists, curators, and arts workers associated with this year\u2019s edition of the Biennale.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe are outraged that the Biennale directors decided to relocate the Israeli Pavilion within the Arsenale. It throws us into complicity without us wanting to,\u201d said Caycedo, whose work appears in the main exhibition \u201cIn Minor Keys.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a way for us to show our discontent and our disgust with the politics that happen underneath the Biennale, and the refusal of the Biennale to be held accountable\u2026. We\u2019re tired of the lack of accountability in the art world.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut, according to Caycedo and artist Rui Dias Monteiro, who also participated, the action was less about drawing the conversation away from the Israeli Pavilion than it was about \u201cuplifting the voices of Palestinian artists and centering them in the conversation.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\tTo that end, most of the artists participating were wearing T-shirts with the names of Gazan and Palestinian artists, many of whom have been killed over the last several years. On the backs of the T-shirts are artworks by those artists. Caycedo and Dias Monteiro carried handouts introducing artists such as Farah Qarmout and Ola Al Shrif, both of whom have participated in the Gaza Biennial and have since been displaced from Gaza to Cairo and Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n \n\tThe artist list of those featured on the T-shirts was \u201ca collective effort\u201d led by Palestinian artists participating in \u201cIn Minor Keys\u201d and the Palestinian Museum in Ramallah.<\/p>\n \n\tAnother artist-participant, who asked to remain anonymous to put the attention on \u201cthe collective action,\u201d told ARTnews<\/em> that he decided to participate because he could no longer stay silent. \u201cThe Biennale is normalizing the participation of countries that commit war crimes and illegal wars and genocide, and we cannot stand by that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tThe artists plan to perform the action at noon on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at different sites around the Biennale.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/venice-biennale-main-show-artists-protest-israel-pavilion-1234783975\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/artist-protestors-biennale.jpg?w=1024″] The Venice Biennale opened for its professional pre-opening on Tuesday, and artists participating in the exhibition wasted no time making their voices heard. At noon, around 60 artists and a few dozen other participants gathered for an action protesting Israel\u2019s participation in the event and protested in support of Palestine. For the […]<\/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-1918925","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\/1918925","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=1918925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1918925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1918925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1918925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1918925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}