The conflict in the Middle East takes center stage in a sensational way at the 60th Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition, curated by Brazilian Adriano Perosa and entitled “Foreigners Everywhere”.
A long list of artists, exhibition curators, teachers and students of art and architecture have signed an appeal letter coordinated by Anga/Art Not Genocide Alliance demanding the exclusion of Israel and its national pavilion from the Venetian exhibition, which opens the next day 20th of April. As artribune.com reports, there were more than 12,000 signatures last night, as seen on anga.live.
There is the winner of the 2023 Turner Prize, the English but Berlin-based sculptor Jesse Darling, who exhibited in Venice in 2019. There is Carolyna Caycedo from Colombia, Biennale 2003. And then Meriem Bennani (Moroccan, based in New York, featured in the Prada Foundation exhibitions this year). There is Naeem Mohaiem, an Englishman with Bengali roots, at the 2015 Biennale. And Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, a German textile artist, invited and therefore present this year. There is Katia Novitskova, Estonia, who enlivened the Estonian pavilion at the 2017 Biennale. Among the Italians are the artist Cesare Petroiusti, the curator Emilia Giorgi, Giulia Albarello from the Museion Bozen, Lucrezia Cippitelli, professor of aesthetics in Brera.
The reaction of the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano was very harsh and clear: “The dictates of those who consider themselves guardians of the truth and who, with arrogance and hatred, think of threatening freedom of thought and creative expression in a Democratic Party and a free nation like Italy. Israel not only has the right to express its art, but also has the duty to bear witness to its people, especially at a moment like this, when it has been hit hard by merciless terrorists. The Biennale will always be a space of freedom, encounters and dialogue and not a space of censorship and intolerance. Culture is a bridge between people and nations, not a dividing wall.”
So there is no chance that the application will be accepted. Also because the country pavilions, which belong to the individual states, are not dependent on the management of the Biennale, but work independently with funds, artists and curators determined by the individual nations.
This is what we read in the appeal: “No to the Genocide Pavilion at the Biennale.” As the art world prepares to visit the nation-state diorama in the gardens, we say that it is unacceptable for art to depict a state that commits ongoing atrocities committed against Palestinians in Gaza. The world's highest court, the International Court of Justice, has declared that Israel is plausibly committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The court issued interim measures and ordered Israel to stop all acts of genocide in Gaza. “Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has lasted for months and even decades, continues despite everything, while its leaders proclaim that they are above international law and boldly publicize their genocidal intentions.”
For the signatories, “the demand for recognition of the atrocities committed by participants is not unprecedented.” From 1950 to 1968, apartheid South Africa was discouraged from exhibiting due to widespread global condemnation and calls for a boycott, and was sidelined when the Biennale allocated spaces . South Africa was not reincorporated until the abolition of the apartheid regime in 1993. In 2022, the Biennale condemned Russia's unacceptable military aggression.
For the authors, “the Biennale's silence on Israel's atrocities against the Palestinians is serious: we are shocked by this double standard; any work that represents Israel constitutes an endorsement of its genocidal policies.”