Venice Biennale: 178 participants demand Israel exclusion
Nearly 200 artists, curators, and art workers participating in this year’s Venice Biennale have signed a letter calling for Israel to be excluded from the exhibition, intensifying political tensions around
Nearly 200 artists, curators, and art workers participating in this year’s Venice Biennale have signed a letter calling for Israel to be excluded from the exhibition, intensifying political tensions around the global art event, according to ARTnews.
The letter, published by activist group Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA), has been signed by 178 Biennale participants, including artists Alfredo Jaar, Tai Shani, Yto Barrada, Sophia Al-Maria, and Meriem Bennani. Another notable signatory is Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, one of several curators chosen by the late Koyo Kouoh to carry out her vision for the main exhibition. The Biennale, meanwhile, has emphasized that it is a place of “artistic freedom” that rejects “any form of exclusion.”
Israel is being represented at the Biennale this year by Romanian-born, Haifa-based artist Belu-Simion Fainaru.
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The petition follows an open letter to the Biennale, published by ANGA on October 2, 2025, that argued the organisation “should not offer a space to a state committing genocide.” In the same letter, it threatened to initiate a boycott of the Biennale if its demands were not met.
This action was not mentioned in the latest letter, which said the deaths of artists, musicians, poets, and journalists in Gaza are “an attempted annihilation of not just the Palestinian people but Palestinian culture.” It added that “no artist or cultural worker should be asked to share a platform with this genocidal state.”
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Representatives from around 25 national pavilions have signed the petition, with a small number choosing to remain anonymous for “fear of possible physical, political, or legal harms.” Other signatories are participating in official collateral events or in Kouoh’s main exhibition “In Minor Keys.”
The Biennale did not respond to a request for comment on ANGA’s petition. When the organizers released the full list of participating nations earlier this month, an accompanying statement explained that the institution “rejects any form of exclusion or censorship in culture and art.” The Biennale’s organizers have so far defended this position amid widespread backlash triggered by Russia’s planned return after sitting the exhibition out for the last two editions amid its war on Ukraine.
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ANGA first launched its campaign to have Israel excluded from the Venice Biennale ahead of the 2024 edition, with a petition signed by over 24,000 artists, curators, writers, and cultural workers. Though the Biennale itself did not meet their demands, Israel’s artist Ruth Patir and the exhibition’s curators ultimately chose to keep the pavilion closed until there was a ceasefire. It never opened.
Israel did not participate in last year’s 19th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2025 because its pavilion in the Giardini was being renovated. This year, however, the Biennale is accommodating Israel in the Arsenale while its pavilion remains under construction. Representative Fainaru has planned a new iteration of “Rose of Nothingness,” an exhibition previously installed in the Romania Pavilion at the 58th Biennale in 2019.
Fainaru did not respond to a request for comment on ANGA’s petition. In January, he told ARTnews that “art is a place for dialogue, not for exclusion.” He added: “It’s one of the main places to overcome politics and try to express the voice of people freely, without any borders.”
