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 …