An open letter to La Biennale di Venezia calls out inaction in the face of global atrocities

The idea that art can remain neutral or separate from politics is a fiction. Several recent global forums have yielded an unfortunate line of questioning, met with monotonous, unaffecting responses from some of the biggest names and even entire institutions in the world. Upholding neutrality in the face of ongoing atrocities, violence, genocide and wars is untenable. In addition to that, it calls into question the contexts and conditions artists work in, represent or are part of.

In March this year, 74 artists and curators invited to participate in the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2026 addressed an open letter to its president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, challenging the decision to relocate the Israeli Pavilion to the Arsenale, in proximity to the central exhibition In Minor Keys, curated by the late Koyo Kouoh. The letter also demands for the exclusion of any official delegation from countries currently accused of war crimes, including Israel, Russia and the United States, as a measure of solidarity with those affected, but also with the nascent hopes of affecting change on a global stage, considering the Biennale’s stature.

The letter recalls moments when the Biennale took explicit political stances—most notably in 1974, when it suspended all National Pavilions to protest the dictatorship in Chile. Their current silence on the matter, especially following the events surrounding the unopened Israel Pavilion at 2024’s Biennale, is called out in the letter as active complicity as opposed to simply neutrality.

The open letter in full follows:

An urgent call from artists and curators of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2026

In refusing the spectacle of horror, the time has come to listen to the minor keys, to tune in sotto voce to the whispers, to the lower frequencies; to find the oases, the islands, where the dignity of all living beings is safeguarded.

—Curatorial statement by Koyo Kouoh, In Minor Keys, 2025

We are artists and curators invited by Koyo Kouoh to the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. As cultural workers and human beings raised and based in a multiplicity of localities around the globe, we express our solidarity with all people subject to rising forms of systemic oppression, inequalities, and erasure, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, Sudan, and Myanmar, as well as rampant violence, occupation, and war in Cameroon, Congo, Cuba, Iran, Kashmir, Lebanon, Mozambique, Ukraine, Venezuela, and too many other places. This is the world we live in, it is the world we make our work in, and it is the larger context within which the 61st Biennale will be seen and received.

We are committed to an active decolonial practice of anti-racist politics and human rights, which is embedded in our work. We speak up in resistance to increased repression, censorship, and policing of cultural and intellectual spaces.

Specifically, we have come together to object to the decision by La Biennale to exceptionally relocate the Israeli pavilion to the Arsenale. To insert the Israeli pavilion into spaces alongside the main exhibition, “In Minor Keys,” conceived by Koyo Kouoh, intrudes upon and goes directly against Kouoh’s curatorial vision, her curatorial statement, and the principles of radical solidarity (the title of a summit she hosted in 2024) that she articulated so clearly in all her work. This will also introduce conditions of violence and fear through the military and police presence that will accompany the Israeli pavilion. This concerns us directly as artists in the exhibition. On March 13, 2026, we requested that La Biennale revoke this decision.

La Biennale has made a statement of neutrality and we submit in response that allowing governments that are actively committing war crimes, atrocities, and genocide to participate is not neutral. A community of nations can only exist if states are sanctioned when they egregiously violate international law and human rights. As the largest and most visible art event in the world, La Biennale and the positions it takes have enormous impact. While it may be beyond the power of an exhibition to bring justice to all our concerns, there are ethical lines that can be drawn, and actions that cannot be normalized.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry determined that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and this same determination has been made by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Human Rights Watch, and leading Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, Israel. The atrocities committed by the Israeli government are well documented, as is the structural and systemic apartheid regime of brutal attacks, killings, and illegal annexations of land. The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on November 21, 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still in place. While these crimes are ongoing, it is unconscionable for La Biennale to accommodate an Israeli pavilion.

The UN also reported on the direct complicity of other nations¹:

The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States that have enabled longstanding systemic violations of international law by Israel. Framed by colonial narratives that dehumanize the Palestinians, this live-streamed atrocity has been facilitated through Third States’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation.

La Biennale has chosen to exclude the pavilions of certain nations in the past based on these nations’ unilateral military aggression or support for apartheid. While certain exclusions (of South Africa from 1968 to 1993, and Russia from 2022 to 2024) were made on the basis of international sanctions, La Biennale has also taken other positions when circumstances demanded. Notably, in 1974 La Biennale stood in solidarity with the people of Chile; all national pavilions were closed and the 1974 edition was renamed “Freedom to Chile: For a Democratic and Anti-fascist Culture.”

La Biennale established another compelling precedent with its 2022 statement excluding official Russian participation²:

For those who oppose the current regime in Russia there will always be a place in the exhibitions of La Biennale … As long as this situation persists, La Biennale rejects any form of collaboration with those who … have carried out or supported such a grievous act of aggression, and will therefore not accept the presence at any of its events of official delegations, institutions, or persons tied in any capacity to the Russian government.

We believe these principles hold true today, and that they apply to Israel, Russia, and the United States. There is a threshold beyond which participation in La Biennale should not be normalized. As in 2022, the current conditions demand that La Biennale di Venezia exclude any official delegation from current regimes committing war crimes, including Israel, Russia, and the United States.

The continuing absence of a Palestinian pavilion only heightens the inequality implicit in the accommodation of the Israeli pavilion³.

We call on the President and the management of La Biennale to join us in making Biennale Arte 2026 a place where, as Koyo Kouoh wrote, “the dignity of all living beings is safeguarded.”

References

¹ https://www.un.org/unispal/document/special-rapporteur-report-gaza-genocide-a-collective-crime-20oct25/

² https://www.labiennale.org/en/news/la-biennale-di-venezia-ukrainian-pavilion-biennale-arte?

³Palestine has been recognized as a sovereign state by 157 of 192 UN member nations, Israel by 163.”

SIGNED

Alice Maher
Carolina Caycedo
Vera Tamari
Hagar Ophir
Avital Barak
Sohrab Hura
Yoshiko Shimada
Rachel Fallon
Florence Lazar
Carrie Schneider
Nolan Oswald Dennis
Alan Phelan
Mohammed Joha
Uriel Orlow
Natalia Lassalle-Morillo
Hala Schoukair
Gala Porras-Kim
Alfredo Jaar
Thania Petersen
Sofía Gallisá Muriente
rana elnemr
Himali Singh Soin and
David Soin Tappeser
Pio Abad
Anonymous artist
Yo-E Ryou
Anonymous artist
BuBu de la Madeleine
Tabita Rezaire
Cauleen Smith
Fabrice Aragno
Rasha Salti
Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo
Joana Hadjithomas and
Khalil Joreige
Mohammed Z. Rahman
Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka
Guadalupe Rosales
Nina Katchadourian
Kemang Wa Lehulere
Sabian Baumann
Anonymous artist
Walid Raad
Marigold Santos
Rajni Perera
Bonnie Devine
Annalee Davis
Éric Baudelaire
Buhlebezwe Siwani
Guadalupe Maravilla
IONE for Pauline Oliveros
Raed Yassin
Anonymous artist
Anonymous artist
lugar a dudas
Amina Saoudi
Anonymous artist
Johannes Phokela
Rory Tsapayi
Anonymous artist
Carrie Yamaoka
Joy Episalla
Zoe Leonard
fierce pussy
Anonymous artist
Ayrson Heráclito
Berni Searle
Anonymous artist
Theo Eshetu
Anonymous artist
Nancy Brooks Brody Estate
Edouard Duval-Carrié
Denniston Hill
Eustáquio Neves