This year’s Venice Biennale may not have its traditional Golden Lion awards, but Italian cultural minster Alessandro Giuli has revealed the person he thought won this year’s edition: Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nation made its Biennale return to this year to great controversy. “There’s no doubt about it. Putin won at the Biennale,” Giuli, who repeatedly denounced Russia’s presence at the event, told the Italian publication Corriere della Sera last week. He added that “it doesn’t seem to me that there are people in the Russian pavilion in a position to express dissent against their regime, which is under sanctions. I don’t think the Russian artists currently performing inside the Biennale pavilion are agents of Moscow disguised as artists, but artists from the free world certainly have the right to express dissent against those who govern them.” Related Articles Russia’s pavilion was widely denounced by activists, artists, and politicians, many of whom called on the Biennale to remove the nation from its official participation. The European Union even said it would withhold a €2 …