The Venice Biennale's Jury-Free Opening: How Disputes Over Russia and Israel Fractured the Art World's Most Prestigious Stage

The 61st Venice Biennale — the world's oldest and most influential contemporary art exhibition — opened on May 9, 2026, in a state of institutional crisis. For the first time in its 131-year history, there was no jury to award the Golden Lion, the field's most coveted prize. All five jurors had resigned. Eighty-one artists had withdrawn from prize consideration. Eighteen national pavilions closed their doors during an unprecedented 24-hour strike. And outside the Israeli pavilion, some two thousand demonstrators marched under banners reading "No artwashing genocide" [1][2].

The exhibition itself — titled "In Minor Keys," curated posthumously by the late Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh, who died in May 2025 — was widely praised [3]. But the art was almost beside the point. The 2026 Biennale became a referendum on whether international cultural institutions can hold together when the wars they try to transcend follow them through the door.

The Jury's Collapse: Nine Days That Upended the Biennale

The crisis began on April 23, when the five-member international jury — presided over by Brazilian curator Solange Farkas and including Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, and Giovanna Zapperi — issued a statement declaring they would not award prizes to "countries whose leaders are currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court" [4][5].

The statement did not name specific countries, but the targets were unmistakable. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine and for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza [4]. By April 30 — nine days before the Biennale's public opening — all five jurors formally resigned, stating their departures came "in acknowledgment of" their earlier announcement [5].

Whether the resignations were coordinated or independent remains ambiguous. The jurors published a joint statement on both occasions, and no individual member broke ranks to offer a separate rationale. The Biennale organization acknowledged receiving the resignations but provided no further comment [5].

Source: Multiple sources

Data as of May 10, 2026CSV

A Structural Problem: Why the Biennale Cannot Simply Exclude Nations

To understand why the Biennale found itself in this position, one must understand its unusual governance structure. Unlike the Cannes Film Festival, where a central organization selects all entries, the Venice Biennale operates through a dual system: a curated central exhibition, and independently organized national pavilions [6].

The pavilion system dates to 1907, when participating countries began building permanent structures at their own expense in the Giardini gardens. Today, roughly 30 nations own their pavilion buildings outright [6]. This creates what the Italian architecture journal Domus described as an "irreversible constraint" — countries that own property within the Giardini maintain autonomous control over their exhibition spaces, and the Biennale Foundation cannot simply revoke their participation rights [6].

Biennale President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco repeatedly invoked this principle, telling Italian lawmakers that he considers the institution "the UN of art from which no nation can be excluded" [7]. He maintained that the Biennale had not violated any regulations and had acted in full compliance with its agreement with the European Education and Culture Executive Agency [7].

The comparison to other institutions is instructive. The Cannes Film Festival, which faced calls to ban Russian films after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, had no structural barrier to doing so — it simply chose to ban Russian state delegations while still screening individual Russian filmmakers' work. The Venice Biennale's property-based model made that kind of selective exclusion far more difficult.

Russia's Return and the Closed Pavilion Compromise

Russia had been absent from the Biennale since 2022, when artists and curators in the Russian pavilion withdrew in protest after the invasion of Ukraine. In 2024, Russia lent its pavilion to Bolivia rather than exhibit [8]. The decision to allow Russia's return in 2026, with an exhibition titled "The Tree is Rooted in the Sky," provoked immediate opposition.

Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli announced he would boycott the opening ceremonies — the first time a sitting Italian culture minister had done so in Biennale history [7]. The culture and foreign ministers of 22 EU member states sent a joint letter to Buttafuoco and the Biennale board urging reconsideration [7]. The European Commission went further, warning that Russia's participation could constitute a violation of EU sanctions and threatening to "suspend or terminate" a €2 million grant covering the 2026-2028 cycle [9][10].

The eventual compromise satisfied almost no one: the Russian pavilion would open for the three-day press preview (May 6-8) but remain closed to the public for the duration of the exhibition, with visitors only able to glimpse the works through windows [7]. The EU ultimately followed through on its funding threat, pulling the grant — a decision that will affect the 2028 edition [10].

The Israeli Pavilion: Art, Protest, and Accusations of Discrimination

If the Russian question was primarily about sanctions and institutional precedent, the Israeli question cut closer to the bone of personal conscience.

Israeli sculptor Belu-Simion Fainaru, the country's exhibiting artist, mounted one of the most forceful defenses of continued participation. "The fact that, according to the jury's decision, I shouldn't participate in the competition because I'm a Jewish artist from Israel, struck me as discriminatory and also racist," Fainaru said [1]. "I am against boycott, I'm for dialogue, and that's a political statement" [1]. His legal team threatened to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights [5]. The Italian Culture Ministry expressed "total solidarity" with Fainaru and sent inspectors to Biennale headquarters [5].

On the opposing side, the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) organized the 24-hour strike that closed 18 pavilions, calling Israel's presence a "normalisation of Israel's presence in cultural spaces" and rejecting "economies of genocide in culture" [11]. Some 200 Biennale participants had previously signed an open letter demanding Israel's exclusion [11]. A separate coalition of 74 artists and curators called for excluding the United States alongside Israel and Russia, arguing that cultural institutions should bar "any official delegation from current regimes committing war crimes" [2].

Co-curator Ksenia Malykh, who fiercely opposed Russia's inclusion, framed the issue in existential terms: "You can't stay neutral in these times. You can't be neutral when people are dying every day because of Russians" [1].

The Scale of Dissent: Artists, Pavilions, and the Strike

The fallout from the jury's resignation cascaded rapidly. Within days, 81 artists withdrew from consideration for the replacement "Visitor Lion" prizes — 51 from the central exhibition and 30 from 16 national pavilions [12]. High-profile withdrawals included Laurie Anderson, Alfredo Jaar, and Zoe Leonard [2].

Source: Art Newspaper, ArtReview, NPR

Data as of May 10, 2026CSV

The countries whose pavilion representatives withdrew spanned a wide geographic range but skewed heavily European and Western: Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Ecuador, Ireland, Kosovo, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Cyprus [12]. The UAE was the sole Gulf state to formally withdraw from prize consideration [2].

The 24-hour strike on May 8, organized by ANGA and backed by three Italian trade unions — Associazione Difesa Lavoratori (ADL Cobas), Unione Sindacale di Base, and Confederazione Unitaria di Base — involved 237 curators, artists, and art workers [11]. Pavilions that fully or partially closed included Austria, Belgium, Spain, the UK, Turkey, Finland, Ireland, Lebanon, Slovenia, Egypt, the Netherlands, Poland, and Japan [2][11]. Japan kept its pavilion open but suspended audio and participatory elements [11].

The geographic pattern of protest was clear: the boycotting and striking pavilions were overwhelmingly from Europe, with a handful from Latin America and the Middle East. No major Asian pavilion (aside from Japan's partial action) or African pavilion joined the strike. This broadly mirrors the geopolitical fault lines visible in UN General Assembly votes on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, where Global South nations have often resisted Western-led condemnation campaigns.

The Case Against Boycott: Cultural Engagement as Dissent

The defenders of continued Russian and Israeli participation have received comparatively little attention, but their arguments are substantive.

Jessica Kreps, a partner at the Lehmann Maupin gallery, argued that "the Biennale should be a place for respectful dialogue" and that freedom of expression must remain central [2]. Buttafuoco's position — that an institution modeled on universal participation loses its purpose the moment it starts selecting nations based on their governments' behavior — echoes arguments long made by organizations like PEN International, which has historically opposed cultural boycotts on free-expression grounds.

Fainaru's case is particularly instructive. As an artist exhibiting under Israel's flag who has publicly called for dialogue over boycott, his presence at the Biennale arguably demonstrates exactly the kind of soft dissent that cultural engagement is supposed to enable. The jury's blanket refusal to consider his work — not because of its content, but because of his national affiliation — raised legitimate questions about whether the boycott punished the state or the individual [1][5].

The South Africa precedent from earlier in 2026 further complicated the picture. In January, South Africa's culture minister canceled the country's pavilion after artist Gabrielle Goliath refused to remove references to Gaza from her installation [13]. Goliath, whose performance piece "Elegy" commemorates victims of atrocities including the killing of Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada in an Israeli airstrike, took the government to court but lost [13]. She ultimately exhibited her work independently at a Venice church [13]. The irony — a government aligned with pro-Palestinian advocacy censoring an artist for pro-Palestinian art — illustrated the unpredictable consequences of mixing state politics with cultural representation.

Similarly, Australia briefly dropped Lebanese-born artist Khaled Sabsabi as its representative after right-wing politicians attacked a 2007 artwork featuring Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The arts community backlash led to his reinstatement [14].

Financial and Institutional Stakes

The concrete financial consequences are already measurable. The European Commission's withdrawal of the €2 million grant — covering a three-year cycle through 2028 — represents a direct hit to the Biennale's operating budget [10]. The 2026 edition attracted 3,733 journalists to its press preview, 70% of them international, suggesting continued media interest despite — or because of — the controversy [9].

The Biennale receives significant funding from the Italian government and the Veneto regional government, but EU cultural grants have been an increasingly important revenue stream for European institutions. The precedent of funding conditioned on curatorial decisions about national participation would, if sustained, give the European Commission de facto veto power over which countries can exhibit at ostensibly independent cultural events.

Attendance data from the early days of the exhibition has not yet been fully reported, though the Biennale's official website noted "growing attendance" [9]. Whether the controversy drives visitors toward or away from the exhibition remains an open question — the 2024 edition, which also faced Israel-related protests, drew record numbers.

A Biennale Without a Jury: Precedent and Implications

The replacement of expert jury selection with a public vote by ticket-holders is without clear precedent in the major international arts prizes. The Golden Lion has been awarded by professional juries since 1938. No comparable institution — not the Turner Prize, not the Hugo Boss Prize, not the Marcel Duchamp Prize — has substituted popular vote for expert judgment under similar circumstances.

The "Visitor Lion" system, in which ticket-holders cast anonymous email votes with winners announced November 22, raises obvious concerns about the nature of the awards. Public voting privileges accessibility and democratic participation but lacks the curatorial authority that gives prizes like the Golden Lion their field-defining weight. An award chosen by tourists and casual visitors carries different institutional meaning than one selected by five internationally recognized curators.

Whether this is a one-edition workaround or a lasting shift depends on whether the underlying disputes are resolved before the 2028 edition. If the geopolitical conditions driving the boycott — the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the ICC warrants for Putin and Netanyahu — persist, there is no obvious reason to expect a different outcome in two years, especially with the EU funding now withdrawn.

Historical Echoes

The Biennale has weathered political crises before. In 1968, student protests disrupted the exhibition. In 1974, director Carlo Ripa di Meana canceled all national pavilions following the Chilean coup. In 2022, the Russian pavilion was padlocked after the invasion of Ukraine [2].

But none of those precedents involved the simultaneous resignation of the entire jury, a multi-country strike, the withdrawal of dozens of artists from prize consideration, and a funding threat from a supranational body. The 2026 crisis is qualitatively different in scale — and in the depth of the institutional questions it raises.

The fundamental tension is between two legitimate principles: that cultural institutions should not provide platforms that normalize state violence, and that cultural institutions lose their purpose when they become instruments of political exclusion. The 131-year-old Biennale, built on a model of universal national representation that predates both world wars, is now stress-testing whether that model can survive the political demands of 2026.

The art, by most accounts, is excellent. Whether anyone is paying attention to it is another matter.