Venice Biennale International Jury Resigns Days Before Exhibition Opens

On April 30, 2026, ten days before the opening ceremony of the world's oldest and most prestigious international art exhibition, the entire jury of the 61st Venice Biennale resigned. The five women — curators and scholars from Brazil, Vietnam, Spain-Equatorial Guinea, Norway-United States, and Italy — walked away from their mandate to award the Golden Lion, the art world's closest equivalent to an Oscar, after the Biennale Foundation refused to accept their demand that countries whose leaders face International Criminal Court arrest warrants be ineligible for prizes [1][2][3].

The resignation leaves the exhibition without a functional jury for the first time in its 130-year history. It has turned what was already a politically fraught edition — the first to attempt reopening the Russian national pavilion since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the first to host an Israeli pavilion since the start of the Gaza war — into an institutional crisis with financial, diplomatic, and cultural consequences that will extend well beyond the Venetian lagoon.

The Jury and Their Statement

The jury was handpicked by Koyo Kouoh, the Cameroonian curator appointed as artistic director of the 61st edition — the first African woman selected for the role. Kouoh, who served as executive director of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, died of cancer on May 10, 2025, at age 57, before she could see her exhibition realized [4][5]. Her curatorial team pledged to carry forward her vision under the title "In Minor Keys."

The jury Kouoh assembled consisted of:

• Solange Oliveira Farkas (president), Brazilian curator and founder of Videobrasil, the São Paulo-based biennial of Southern Hemisphere art [6]
• Zoe Butt, Vietnamese-Australian curator and founder of the in-tangible institute in Thailand [6]
• Elvira Dyangani Ose, Spanish-Equatorial Guinean curator and artistic director of the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial, formerly of Tate Modern [6]
• Marta Kuzma, Norwegian-American curator and professor at Yale School of Art, former dean of the Yale School of Art and co-curator of Manifesta 5 [6]
• Giovanna Zapperi, Italian art historian and professor at the University of Geneva [6]

On April 22, the jury published a "Statement of Intention" on e-flux declaring that it would "refrain from considering those countries whose leaders are currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court" [7][8]. The statement invoked the jury's "responsibility towards the historical role of the Biennale as a platform that connects art to the urgencies of its time" and acknowledged the "complex relationship between artistic practice and nation-state representation" [7].

While the statement did not name countries, its meaning was unambiguous. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin (for the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children, March 2023) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, November 2024). The criterion effectively excluded both Russia and Israel from Golden and Silver Lion consideration [1][3].

Eight days later, on April 30, the jury resigned, citing the Biennale Foundation's refusal to endorse their position. Their resignation statement read: "As of 30 April 2026, we, the international jury selected by Koyo Kouoh, Artistic Director of the 61st edition of La Biennale di Venezia In Minor Keys, have resigned. We do so in acknowledgment of our Statement of Intention issued on 22 April 2026" [9].

The Timeline of Escalation

The jury's resignation was the culmination of weeks of intensifying conflict between artists, governments, and the Biennale Foundation, led by president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco.

Source: Multiple Sources

Data as of Apr 30, 2026CSV

The crisis began well before the Statement of Intention. In March 2026, Russia announced it would reopen its national pavilion at the Giardini for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Buttafuoco defended the decision, arguing that the Biennale operates as an autonomous cultural institution [10][11]. The move immediately drew opposition from the Italian government: Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli launched an official inspection of the Russian pavilion and announced he would boycott the preview days and the May 9 opening ceremony [12][13].

On April 13, the European Commission announced it "intended" to freeze or revoke a €2 million grant to the Biennale allocated through 2028, stating that Russia's participation violated EU sanctions [14]. The European Education and Culture Executive Agency initiated formal proceedings against the Biennale Foundation [15].

On April 22, the jury issued its Statement of Intention. On April 28, Israel's foreign ministry accused the jury of "boycotting" sculptor Belu-Simion Fainaru, the Romanian-born Israeli artist selected to represent Israel, calling the move "a contamination of the art world" and accusing the jury of turning the Biennale into "a spectacle of false, anti-Israeli political indoctrination" [16][17].

By April 29, under combined pressure from the EU, Italy, and international criticism, the Russian pavilion announced it would be closed to the public for the entire exhibition run (May 9 through November 22), open only to press during the preview days of May 5–8 [18][19].

On April 30, the jury resigned. The Biennale Foundation issued a terse statement acknowledging the resignations without comment on the reasons, and announced that the prize ceremony originally scheduled for May 9 would be postponed to November 22, the final day of the exhibition [1][20].

No Golden Lions: What Replaces the Jury

In the absence of a jury, the Biennale Foundation established two new awards: "Visitors' Lions," determined by public vote rather than expert judgment. One will go to the best participant in the main exhibition "In Minor Keys," the other to the best national pavilion [20].

The Golden Lion for Best National Participation and the Golden Lion for Best Participant are the Biennale's most coveted awards. They carry no disclosed monetary prize but confer enormous career value — past recipients include artists such as Adrian Piper (2015), Anne Imhof for the German Pavilion (2017), and Archie Moore for Australia (2024). The switch to a popular vote fundamentally changes the nature of recognition at the Biennale, replacing curatorial expertise with crowd preference [1][3].

The Biennale's bylaws do not appear to contain an explicit contingency mechanism for mass jury resignation. The creation of Visitors' Lions represents an improvised solution without clear precedent in the institution's history [3][20].

The Russia Question

Buttafuoco's decision to reopen the Russian pavilion sits at the center of the crisis. Russia withdrew from the Biennale in 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine and was absent in 2024. Its return in 2026, with a group exhibition titled "The tree is rooted in the sky," was announced by Putin's Special Representative for International Cultural Cooperation [10][11].

The Italian government opposed the decision. Giuli's inspection of the pavilion and his refusal to attend the opening represented an unusual public break between Italy's culture ministry and the Biennale Foundation, which the ministry helps fund [12][13]. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went further, signing a decree to sanction five Russian cultural figures linked to the pavilion [11].

The compromise — keeping the pavilion physically present but closed to the public — satisfied few parties. Critics argued it still legitimized Russia's cultural presence; defenders of institutional autonomy argued the Biennale should not become a tool of state foreign policy [18][19].

The Israel Dimension

Israel's return to the Biennale in 2026 — its first participation since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023 — was equally contentious. The Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA), a coalition of artists and cultural workers, circulated a letter demanding Israel's exclusion, signed by nearly 200 international figures associated with Biennale projects [21][22].

A separate open letter published on e-flux, signed by 74 artists and curators participating in "In Minor Keys," objected specifically to the Biennale's decision to relocate the Israeli pavilion from its usual location to the Arsenale complex — the same venue housing the main exhibition. The signatories argued this placement "intrudes upon and goes directly against Kouoh's curatorial vision" and called for the exclusion of "states currently accused of war crimes," naming Israel, Russia, and the United States [23].

Israel's representative, sculptor Belu-Simion Fainaru, called the jury's exclusion "a form of cultural censorship." His planned exhibition, "Rose of Nothingness," draws on the work of Jewish Romanian poet Paul Celan and addresses themes of loss and memory — a context that Israel's foreign ministry argued made the boycott particularly unjust [16][17].

The Case for the Jury — and the Case Against

Supporters of the jury's action frame it as a principled stand. The ICC arrest warrants are not abstract political opinions but formal legal proceedings by an international court. By this logic, the jury applied an objective, externally defined criterion — active ICC charges against a head of state — rather than imposing a subjective political test [7][8].

The jury's supporters also point to the precedent set by the Biennale's own handling of Russia in 2022, when the institution effectively endorsed Russia's withdrawal following the invasion of Ukraine. If the Biennale could accept Russia's absence on political grounds in 2022, critics ask, why does it insist on Russia's presence in 2026 [14]?

The case against the jury rests on institutional mandate. The jury's role, as defined by the Biennale Foundation, is to evaluate artistic merit — not to adjudicate geopolitics. By resigning en masse over a political dispute, the argument goes, the jurors breached a duty of neutrality and set a precedent that allows future juries to hold institutional processes hostage to ideological positions [1][3].

This concern extends beyond the immediate controversy. If a jury can exclude entire countries based on ICC warrants, what prevents a future jury from excluding countries based on other political criteria — environmental records, press freedom rankings, or human rights indices? The slippery slope argument holds that artistic judgment and political judgment must remain separate if the Biennale is to function as a genuinely international exhibition [3].

There is also the question of proportionality. The artists representing Israel and Russia at the Biennale are not state officials. Fainaru is a sculptor whose work engages with themes of Jewish history and loss. The artists in the Russian pavilion, while participating under a national banner, are individual cultural practitioners. Excluding their work from consideration because of the actions of their governments, critics argue, punishes the wrong people [16][17].

Financial and Institutional Fallout

The crisis carries concrete financial consequences. The EU's €2 million funding withdrawal — from the 2028 allocation — signals that the Biennale's relationship with its most significant international funder has been damaged [14][15]. Italy's culture ministry, which provides substantial annual support to the Biennale Foundation, has not announced funding cuts but the minister's public boycott represents an unmistakable warning [12][13].

Source: La Biennale di Venezia / Artnet News

Data as of Nov 22, 2024CSV

The Biennale has drawn record-breaking attendance in recent editions, with over 800,000 visitors in 2022 and approximately 700,000 in 2024. Whether the 2026 controversy will affect ticket sales remains an open question. Past political disputes at the Biennale — including the 2022 Russian withdrawal — did not measurably reduce attendance. The controversy may even drive additional interest, as it has done at other politically charged cultural events [24][25].

The reputational cost is harder to quantify. The Biennale's authority rests partly on the prestige of its Golden Lion, awarded by expert juries since the institution's founding. Replacing the jury with a public vote, even temporarily, diminishes the award's standing in the art world. For artists, a Golden Lion awarded by visitors carries different weight than one bestowed by a panel of internationally recognized curators [1][3].

Patterns of Support and Opposition

The lines of support and opposition track broadly along geographic and political axes. The 74 signatories of the e-flux letter are predominantly artists and curators from the Global South and Europe, many with established positions supporting cultural boycotts or Palestinian solidarity movements [23]. ANGA's broader petition drew support from thousands of cultural workers internationally [22].

Opposition to the jury's stance came primarily from Israeli government officials and institutions, from defenders of institutional neutrality in the European art establishment, and from commentators who view the ICC-based criterion as selectively targeting Israel and Russia while ignoring other states with contested human rights records [16][17].

The involvement of the jury members themselves in networks of Global South cultural production — Farkas with Videobrasil, Butt with Southeast Asian art institutions, Dyangani Ose with pan-African curatorial practice — has led some commentators to suggest the resignation reflects a broader shift in power dynamics within international art institutions, where curators from outside the traditional Euro-American axis are asserting political agency in ways that challenge established institutional norms [6][3].

Whether this represents coordinated advocacy or organic alignment of values is difficult to determine from available evidence. The jury members share professional networks and intellectual commitments that would naturally produce convergent positions on questions of human rights and institutional accountability [6][7].

What Happens Next

The 61st Venice Biennale opens to the public on May 9, 2026. The exhibition "In Minor Keys" will proceed as Koyo Kouoh envisioned it, realized by her curatorial team. The Israeli pavilion will present Fainaru's work in the Arsenale. The Russian pavilion will stand in the Giardini, closed to visitors [4][5][18].

Two Visitors' Lions will be awarded on November 22, chosen by the public rather than by experts. The EU's funding review will proceed through its own institutional channels. And the art world will reckon with a question the jury's resignation has forced into the open: whether an institution built around national pavilions can continue to function when the nations themselves are at war, and whether the people tasked with judging art can — or should — set aside the world beyond the gallery walls.