Venice Biennale artists demand Israel’s exclusion from renowned festival
An Italian soldier stands guard in front of Israel’s pavilion during the pre-opening of the Venice Biennale art show, on 16 April 2024
Oscar Rickett reports in Middle East Eye on 17 March 2026:
A group of artists, curators and art workers participating in the 2026 Venice Biennale have written to the festival’s organisers demanding Israel’s exclusion from the international exhibition.
In a letter to the directors of the Venice Biennale seen by Middle East Eye, the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) says it is standing “in a collective refusal to allow you to platform the Israeli state as it commits genocide”.
Signed by 178 participants from around 25 countries represented in this year’s festival, the letter says that the “Venice Biennale’s complicity with the attempted destruction of Palestinian life must end”.
“No artist or cultural worker should be asked to share a platform with this genocidal state. As long as Israel exists by means of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, it must not be represented at the Venice Biennale,” the letter reads.
Well-known signatories include the Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar, the Moroccan Yto Barrada, and Cauleen Smith, a Black American filmmaker and multimedia artist.
The world-famous Biennale, which alternates every year between an art exhibition and an architecture one, hosts 29 permanent national pavilions in the Venice Giardini, where artists chosen by their countries exhibit.
Israel’s pavilion, which was opened in 1952, is one of these permanent sites. At the last art Biennale in 2024, many months after Israel’s genocide in Gaza had begun, ANGA launched a campaign against Israel’s participation with an open letter that was signed by over 24,000 people.
The pavilion was eventually shut down by Ruth Patir, the Israeli artist due to show work at it. In 2025, Israel did not participate in the architecture Biennale, with its culture ministry saying they needed to renovate the pavilion.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
Patir’s closure of the national pavilion in 2024 prompted the Israeli government to introduce a clause into the contract for the 2026 Biennale requiring the selected artist to ensure that the pavilion stays open.
But this year’s Israeli entry will not be exhibited at the pavilion. Ordinarily, this would mean it would have to rent a space on the private market, but the Biennale has allowed Israel to move to a temporary space at the Venice Arsenale, a complex of former shipyards and armouries that serves as an exhibition space.
ANGA described this decision as an “explicit institutional endorsement at a moment of escalating violence”.
Venice Biennale under pressure over Israel and Russia
The president of the Venice Biennale, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, a right-wing Sicilian journalist who converted to Islam in 2015, has been filmed wishing a reporter a happy Ramadan while refusing to answer questions about Israel’s involvement.