[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2274693668.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tNearly half of the artists in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale said they did not want to be considered for the show\u2019s top honors this year, marking yet another unprecedented development in an edition roiled by controversies of all kinds.<\/p>\n
\n\tFifty-two artists\u2014just under half of the artists in the Koyo Kouoh\u2013curated \u201cIn Minor Keys\u201d\u2014signed the statement published by e-flux<\/em> on Saturday, which noted that they had done so \u201cin solidarity with the resignation of the jury selected by Koyo Kouoh.\u201d Those artists include such well-known names as Alfredo Jaar, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Otobong Nkanga, and Walid Raad.<\/p>\n \n\tPublished on the day when the Biennale typically holds its Golden Lion ceremony\u2014something that did not happen this year because there was no jury to evaluate the artists\u2014the statement was also signed by the artists who had done national pavilions for 16 countries. Among the national representatives who signed were France\u2019s Yto Barrada, Lithuania\u2019s Egle Budvytyte, and the Netherlands\u2019s Dries Verhoeven.<\/p>\n \n\tTypically, these artists would have all been eligible for the Golden Lions, which are given by a jury both to artists in the main exhibition and national representatives. But instead of a jury determining who wins, the Biennale has planned what it has called Visitor Lions, which will be decided through a public vote. Those awards will be given out on the show\u2019s closing day, on November 22, instead of during the exhibition\u2019s public opening.<\/p>\n \n\tA Biennale spokesperson did not immediately respond to ARTnews<\/em>\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Biennale was plunged into controversy last month after the five-person jury named to judge the prizes issued a statement of its own, saying that it would not consider national representatives whose countries have been charged with crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court. That would have knocked both Israel and Russia, two countries whose presence at the Biennale has been widely protested, out of contention.<\/p>\n \n\tThen, about a week after the jury was announced, its members collectively quit, without an explanation. Since then, multiple outlets, including the Italian news agency Adnkronos, have reported that Israel\u2019s representative, Belu-Simion Fainaru, pressured the Biennale behind the scenes, alleging discrimination on the basis of race and antisemitism, and threatening to bring the show to court.<\/p>\n \n\tHis pavilion, along with Russia\u2019s, ultimately made it on view, though not without demonstrations nearby in the case of both shows. The organizers of Russia\u2019s pavilion, however, have said their show will close following the Biennale\u2019s preview days for the press.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the run-up to the Biennale, politicians, artists, and activists alike had called on the show to drop Israel and Russia from the show. But the Biennale said it could not do so, claiming it did not have the right to exclude nations recognized as states in Italy, and said that the show \u201crejects any form of exclusion or censorship.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\tOnce the show opened, Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco said his exhibition was \u201cnot a court,\u201d marking another attempt to claim the Biennale as a space of political neutrality. Some have questioned whether the Biennale really is a nonpartisan exhibition, pointing to the show\u2019s history of making political statements, including in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. That year, Russia\u2019s artists closed their show, earning the Biennale\u2019s stamp of approval.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/venice-biennale-artists-decline-consideration-visitor-lions-1234784841\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2274693668.jpg?w=1024″] Nearly half of the artists in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale said they did not want to be considered for the show\u2019s top honors this year, marking yet another unprecedented development in an edition roiled by controversies of all kinds. Fifty-two artists\u2014just under half of the artists in the Koyo […]<\/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-1926952","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\/1926952","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=1926952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1926952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1926952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1926952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}