All posts tagged: Biennale

Thomas Rom On His Top Exhibitions in Venice for the Biennale This Year

Thomas Rom On His Top Exhibitions in Venice for the Biennale This Year

Published by Jenni Sidey

This year’s Venice Biennale vernissage week brought more than the usual round of openings for art adviser and Performance Space New York board chair Thomas Rom, as the institution’s Visionaries Circle co-hosted a performance by theater impresario-turned-artist Jordan Roth at Palazzo dei Fiori. We asked Rom to share his reflections on everything he saw in La Serenissima—from the Biennale’s main exhibition, “In Minor Keys,” to quieter collateral shows, like Kan Yasuda’s “Isole del Silenzio.” What follows are his observations, lightly edited for clarity. It is said that Venice is the place where one goes to lose oneself elegantly. I have always found it to be the place where I go to find my friends, while ideally keeping a certain degree of elegance intact. In May I arrived at the Biennale opening week with that exact objective in mind, leading a group of patrons, collectors, and artists on behalf of Performance Space New York’s Visionaries Circle through the canals, islands, and palazzos of Venice in search of inspiration, beauty, and connection. Venice, as ever, rewarded the …

Venice Biennale Artists Threaten Legal Action Against Organizers

Venice Biennale Artists Threaten Legal Action Against Organizers

Published by Jenni Sidey

More than 100 artists are threatening legal action against the Venice Biennale Foundation for ignoring their demands that the foundation withdraw their names from consideration for the “Visitors’ Lion” awards at the current edition over the inclusion of national pavilions by Israel and Russia. The threat is included in a new announcement published on e-flux. A May 20 letter addressed to the foundation and its president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, is published in the announcement. It is signed by some 67 artists whose work appears in curator Koyo Kouoh’s exhibition “In Minor Keys,” including prominent figures like Laurie Anderson, Alfredo Jaar, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Walid Raad. Also among the signatories are 39 artists representing their countries, including Denmark (Maja Malou Lyse, Chus Martínez, and Commons Accounts), Britain’s Lubaina Himid, and Austria’s Florentina Holzinger, all among the star national pavilions. Related Articles Kouoh died suddenly in May 2025. The Biennale announced the jury, invited by Kouoh and led by president Solange Oliveira Farkas, founding artistic director of the Videobrasil Biennial, this past April; its job is normally …

Open Letter Decries ‘Censorship’ of Kazakh Artist at Venice Biennale

Open Letter Decries ‘Censorship’ of Kazakh Artist at Venice Biennale

Published by Jenni Sidey

Controversy has once again reached the Venice Biennale, this time at the Kazakhstan pavilion, where artist Äsel Kadyrhanova’s presentation was reportedly dismantled prior to the exhibition’s opening. The fallout has left fractures within the Kazakhstani art community and among the pavilion’s organizers in Venice, with conflicting accounts emerging over who ordered the work’s removal and why. The news emerged in a May 21 open letter signed by prominent members of the Kazakhstani art community and published on e-flux. The letter alleges that Äsel Kadyrhanova’s multimedia installation Machine (2013)—a meditation on Stalin-era repression in Kazakhstan—was dismantled on May 5 on the orders of the nation’s Ministry of Culture, or by individuals acting on behalf of the pavilion’s organizers, after negotiations between Kadyrhanova and the pavilion’s curator, Syrlybek Bekbota, failed. Related Articles In a May 11 article published by the Kazakh media outlet Vlast, titled “Kazakhstan’s Ministry Removes Kadyrkhanova’s Work from the Venice Biennale,” representatives of the Museo Storico Navale di Venezia, the Italian Navy–affiliated museum hosting the exhibition, denied any role in the work’s removal. D’Uva, …

How the Venice Biennale became Russia’s way back into Europe – POLITICO

How the Venice Biennale became Russia’s way back into Europe – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Featuring giant floral installations and various musical performances, Russia’s exhibit was one of the most politically explosive in years, drawing politicians, artists, dissidents and European institutions into an increasingly bitter clash over culture, propaganda and freedom of expression. Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini personally visited the pavilion during the pre-opening days. “Art has no borders, no censorship, no gag,” he said. “Culture and sport should remain neutral spaces and places of encounter.” But for critics of Russia’s participation, Russia’s display was less about artistic freedom than an attempt to regain international legitimacy after the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. A Ukrainian protester is pictured in front of the closed Russian pavilion on the day of the Biennale’s official opening to the public. | Martina Sapio/POLITICO “The presence of Russia at the Biennale is an attempt to normalize the war,” said Ksenia Malykh, curator of the Ukrainian pavilion, which had its central installation — a deer statue called “Security Guarantees” — installed within sight of the Russia’s building. These concerns had already triggered …

Amanda Heng creates space for rest at Venice Biennale: ‘Find a moment for yourself’

Amanda Heng creates space for rest at Venice Biennale: ‘Find a moment for yourself’

Published by Sam Flores

A significant figure in the contemporary arts scene of Singapore since the 1980s, Heng is a Cultural Medallion recipient who has had her work featured in major biennales and art festivals. Most recently, she was included in the all-women group show Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise at the National Gallery Singapore, which runs until November. From walking a pet stool down the street to setting up a table to encourage people to have conversations while plucking beansprout, Heng’s body-centric practice spans nearly four decades.  These two, titled Walking The Stool and Let’s Chat respectively, are among her well-known performance pieces. Heng uses everyday gestures and ideas to explore gender roles and societal expectations in her practice.  And it’s no different in Venice. Inspired by the city’s many bridges, Heng uses the ordinary and familiar element of their steps and her observations of people using them to create A Pause. The steps are unusually shallow – at 10cm high and from 50cm to 4m in width – and naturally slow down visitors’ movement as they …

The Venice Biennale and the Art Lover’s Dilemma

The Venice Biennale and the Art Lover’s Dilemma

Published by Daniella Wilson

The forced excitement accompanying each new iteration of the Venice Biennale, I’ve heard it said, is akin to a faked orgasm—at some point, it’s probably better to stop. Yet among this magical city’s spells, as the novelist Mary McCarthy once wrote, is “one of peculiar potency: the power to awaken the philistine dozing in the sceptic’s breast.” McCarthy had in mind “dry, prose people” who object to “feeling what they are supposed to feel, in the presence of marvels.” This, then, is the art lover’s dilemma whenever the Biennale comes around: Do you marshal skepticism or let the feelings flow? Whatever your preference, you’ll get a lot of practice. The Biennale, which opened last week and will remain up through November, has frequently and misleadingly been called “the Olympics of the art world”—and it’s certainly a competition of sorts (primarily for attention), but no one seems to care much about who’s winning. More accurate, it’s an everywhere-all-at-once phenomenon. You try to account for it all, but it’s virtually impossible to tell a clean story about …

Iran Pushes Back on Venice Biennale Withdrawal Reports: ‘We’re Still Coming’

Iran Pushes Back on Venice Biennale Withdrawal Reports: ‘We’re Still Coming’

Published by Jenni Sidey

Last week, the Venice Biennale announced that Iran had dropped out of the exhibition. Now, it appears, that report was incorrect. On Tuesday, Aydin Mahdizadeh Tehrani, the director-general of visual arts at the Iranian ministry of culture and Islamic guidance told the Iran Students News Agency that it still plans to participate. “Iran never withdrew from participating in the Venice Biennale,” Tehrani said, as translated by Google Translate. “Incidentally, we had the initial agreement to participate in Venice and we are still in consultation. We have submitted a plan to participate in the Biennale as an exhibition, and we will probably receive a receive a response in the next few days.” Related Articles In an extensive Q&A with ISNA, Tehrani said he was confused by the Biennale organizers’ statement after it never gave them a letter of withdrawal, nor announced that they weren’t participating. He said further that Iran’s organizers were in conversations with the Biennale to resolve several issues related to sanctions against Iran, high financial costs of renting a space for the pavilion, the …

Putin ‘Won’ the Venice Biennale, Says Italian Culture Minister

Putin ‘Won’ the Venice Biennale, Says Italian Culture Minister

Published by Jenni Sidey

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 …

Venice Biennale opens with protests and without a jury : NPR

Venice Biennale opens with protests and without a jury : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Pussy Riot and FEMEN activists protest Russia’s presence after its absence following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine in front of the Russian pavilion at the 2026 Art Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy, on May 6, 2026. Luca Bruno/AP hide caption toggle caption Luca Bruno/AP The 61st Venice Biennale opened Saturday in a chaotic atmosphere marked by geopolitical strife, casting a shadow over what draws people to the world-renowned festival: the contemporary art on display. In tandem with the opening, dozens of artists announced their withdrawal from awards consideration — the latest in a wave of protests surrounding the international art event that has historically celebrated the likes of Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, and Jackson Pollock. Laurie Anderson, Alfredo Jaar and Zoe Leonard are among the high-profile signatories who backed the statement of withdrawal, along with such national pavilions as France, Ecuador and the United Arab Emirates. “We do so in solidarity with the resignation of the jury,” the statement said, alluding to the mass resignation, on Apr. 30, of the entire five-member Biennale awards jury. …

Venice Biennale Artists Decline Consideration for ‘Visitor Lions’

Venice Biennale Artists Decline Consideration for ‘Visitor Lions’

Published by Jenni Sidey

Nearly half of the artists in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale said they did not want to be considered for the show’s top honors this year, marking yet another unprecedented development in an edition roiled by controversies of all kinds. Fifty-two artists—just under half of the artists in the Koyo Kouoh–curated “In Minor Keys”—signed the statement published by e-flux on Saturday, which noted that they had done so “in solidarity with the resignation of the jury selected by Koyo Kouoh.” Those artists include such well-known names as Alfredo Jaar, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Otobong Nkanga, and Walid Raad. Related Articles Published on the day when the Biennale typically holds its Golden Lion ceremony—something that did not happen this year because there was no jury to help run it—the statement was also signed by the artists who had done national pavilions for 16 countries. Among the national representatives who signed were France’s Yto Barrada, Lithuania’s Egle Budvytyte, and the Netherlands’s Dries Verhoeven. Typically, these artists would have all been eligible for the Golden Lions, which …