The Venice Biennale was disrupted on Friday morning as some of the major artists at this year’s event shuttered their exhibitions in protest over Israel’s participation.
When the final preview day opened at 10 a.m., dozens of visitors flocked to Austria’s pavilion, where Florentina Holzinger’s performance “Seaworld Venice” which includes numerous naked performers, had drawn hourslong lines all week. They found the pavilion closed, with a sign outside saying that “some team members have decided to participate in the strike.”
Some of the other buzziest exhibitions at this year’s event, including those by artists representing Belgium, Egypt, Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea, were also shut. Signs outside some of those pavilions read, “We stand with Palestine.”
The Biennale’s main exhibition, “In Minor Keys,” which takes place across two sites, was open as usual. But in the larger of those, the Arsenale, a handful of artists had attached Palestinian flags or pro-Palestinian posters to their artworks.
The Israeli pavilion in the Arsenale was also closed to visitors, but that was because it was hosting its official opening. Armed police officers outside stopped anybody without tickets from entering.
Belu-Simion Fainaru, the artist representing Israel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He previously told The New York Times that his installation, “Rose of Nothingness,” represented people coming together. “Art should be a place to speak with each other, not a way to exclude,” he said.
The Biennale said in a statement that the strikes “do not involve the institution’s staff or organization” and that it was “committed to ensuring the orderly conduct of the event, in respect of freedom of expression and the plurality of opinions.”
Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, the Biennale’s president, said this week that the exhibition was a place “where the world comes together” and that all should be welcome rather than subject to censorship.
Many Biennale artists disagree with that assessment. Dries Verhoeven, the artist representing the Netherlands, said on Friday that he had shut his pavilion to show his “disgust” at the Biennale’s decision to allow Israel a platform given the “darkness” in Gaza.
Verhoeven, who stood outside his roped-off pavilion alongside the 13 performers involved in his show, said he was inspired to strike by artists who protested over South Africa’s presence at the Biennale during the apartheid era.
“That started with a few artists and countries, who said, ‘No,’” he said, “and this is what we’re trying to do now — to show to the Biennale this is not a neutral place as long as Israel is having a pavilion.”
The strike actions were the latest upheaval at this year’s Biennale, which was rocked for months before the preview week by controversy over Israel’s participation and also by the return of Russia to the event for the first time since invading Ukraine in 2022.
Last month, the Biennale’s jury said it would not award prizes to artists from countries whose leaders are being investigated for war crimes, which excluded from consideration both the Israeli and Russian participants. Later, the jury resigned en masse after the artist representing Israel accused the jury of discrimination.
This week, the Biennale’s show grounds have been the site of protests over the Israeli and Russian pavilions.
On Wednesday morning, protesters led by Pussy Riot, the dissident Russian artist collective that started out as a rock band, marched up to the Russia pavilion carrying signs with messages like “Blood is Russia’s art” written on them.
Russia is presenting a show featuring at least 38 artists and musicians called “The Tree Is Rooted in the Sky.” During previews that started on Tuesday, the presentation included an arrangement of cut flowers, a dance floor and bar serving vodka. Russia’s pavilion has been open only during the preview days and will close on Saturday when the Biennale opens to the public.
Anastasia Karneeva, the Russia pavilion’s commissioner, rejected calls from activists to close pavilions as shutting off dialogue, meaning “nothing can grow.”
Pussy Riot called for the Russia pavilion to host an alternative exhibition for current and former imprisoned Russian artists. Nadya Tolokonnikova, a Pussy Riot member who organized Wednesday’s protest alongside Femen, called those the “real voices” of Russian artists: “people who stood for Ukraine, who either did a symbolic action, or wrote a post, or liked a post, or tried to burn down a military draft office.”
“This art really should be representing Russia,” she said.
She added that cultural showcases such as the Biennale pavilion was part of Russian military strategy. “They wage war with tanks, drones, but also they wage war with culture, language, words,” Tolokonnikova said. “And so far they are winning.
Zachary Small contributed reporting.
