Venice. Part 1.
In Spineless Keys
Preview guestlists.
Entry queues.
Overheard gossip.
Opening parties.
Pussy Riot.
Pee Jetskis.
Defunding threats.
Jury resignations.
Pavilion protests.
Police violence.
Geopolitical implosion.
Biennale collapse.
What can I tell you that you haven’t already heard from my quicker colleagues? Back at home, I’m left with a certain sense of Ratlosigkeit. A word for what’s between perplexity and powerlessness.
The last time that the Biennale seemed to face its ultimate edition was in 1968. Students protested against the capitalistically implicated institution (back in the day, artworks were not only exhibited but sold as well at the Biennale), which reacted with heightened police presence. Responding to escalating repression by the police, several Biennale artists joined the protests and refused to display their works for as long as the police remained.
Against the current geopolitical escalations into war, genocide and neo-fascism, the motives for the 1968 student protest appear almost insignificant, although their convictions were certainly noble. Almost 60 years later, nothing really changed. The decades in between were nothing but a readjustment period to keep going as usual.
A phrase by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, head of the Biennale Foundation, keeps ringing in my head like a tinnitus:
“Diplomacy of Beauty”
This is how he refered to the mission of the Biennale in his interview with La Reppublica.1 What might come across as deflection of institutional responsibility to take a stance is a confession of the institution’s premise: Power through beauty.
The Biennale is a mirror of political reality in which passivity gets to cosplay neutrality. The Biennale doesn’t invite countries. The Biennale doesn’t allow countries to participate. Instead, the Biennale acts as a host who delegates the guestlist to the government. Instead of active selection, every country that’s recognized by the Italian government is automatically eligible. Whether countries participate and what exhibition they come up with is entirely up to them.
Who has a say at the table of the “Diplomacy of Beauty”?
Gabrielle Goliath (Millennial, South African) — initially appointed to represent South Africa this year and discarded shortly after — made her exhibition happen anyways. Exiled to Chiesa di Sant’Antonin, her ongoing Elegy series mourns those whose lives were violently taken across South Africa, Namibia, and Gaza. No demands. No accusations. Just mourning of what can’t be restored. How cruel to deny even that.
Bind their mouths shut and demand they speak their minds.
On Wednesday, Brazilian funk blasted from the Russian Pavilion into the Giardini. Nobody had expected Russia to be as audacious to return to the Biennale when it was announced in early spring.
The exhibition title: The Tree Is Rooted in the Sky.
I lurked inside and saw some people holding plastic cups in their hands and bobbing along to the music. I physically recoiled and immediately left. Appaled, a friend of mine told me later that they were serving free vodka there.
The music kept blasting throughout those days. On Thursday, it was Tibetan throat singing. Both Russian and international artists participated at the Russian exhibition. According to Alex Marshall’s NYT article, every interviewed artist asserted that they wanted to focus exclusively on the art.
You can’t sell heroin at the farmer’s market. — Zachary Rants
Russia’s participation is about reestablishing and asserting presence. Now that the preview days are over, the pavilion is closed. But the exhibition continues through videos outside of the building. Still there, but untouchable.
It’s participation to prove that they can. For the normalization to work, they have to pretend to play by the rules. The rules: Art is meant to foster dialogue.
By pretending to open up, the Russian participation can frame its public rejection as a rejection of the freedom of art. Imagine a player demanding fair play while openly threatening to obliterate the field on which the game happens.
Although this set-up is in every way offensive to the premise of artistic freedom, some arguments try to defend it:
a) If art really is powerful, it should be able to withstand the pressure.
b) People will recognize bad art as such, so there’s no need to preemtively censor it.
c) If you start now, where do you draw the line, then?
Answer to a) There can’t be music in minor keys while somebody towers above the musician and threatens to take the instrument away if they’re not pleased with the tune.
Answer to b) The framing makes the artwork. If propaganda is institutionally backed, it moves further in the direction of the acceptable.
Answer to c) Whataboutism preemtively exerts damage control in favor of the status quo. It expresses a worldview in which nothing should be acknowledged unless it can be neatly handled in one simple solution. Complexity and discomfort unfairly overwhelm the subject. Making someone acknowledge their complicitness in oppression is the last thing that art should do, right?
“Where do you draw the line, then?”
You tell me. How far do you feel comfortable?
“If we start now, we’ll have to reconsider the whole thing.”
Well, yes. This is exactly what we might have to do.
After the jury collectively resigned, the Biennale didn’t address its responsibility. It spinelessly delegated it to the public. For the first time, the Golden Lion will be awarded by visitors. So far, 81 artists and national pavilion representatives withdrew from the public vote competition. I want to express my deepest respect to every single person who took a stance.
Violence upholds its power through rational vocabulary.
Away from the Biennale at the group show Canicula, artist duo Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk (both Millennial, Ukrainian) made the violence of language explicit through Wishful Thinking (2026), a three-part video installation where Ukrainian actors play elderly Russian soldiers in the 2060s. If they only did the second act, it would have been impeccable.
An elderly man is hovered onto a hospital bed to lie fully frontal like Andrea Mantegna’s lamented Christ. He’s frail, almost naked, connected to cables and machines. In contrast, his mind is remarkably sharp while answering the young interviewers’ questions. They ask him about the war crimes committed in Ukraine and his role in them.
“Do you feel responsible for those crimes?”
He speaks calmly. His arguments are removed from emotional involvement. He speaks of orders and military strategy, perceiving himself as someone who simply got a job done. He says his actions were never explicitly directed at civilians. Collateral damage is inevitable.
He doesn’t speak as someone who forgot or who doesn’t realize the extent of his actions. He speaks with the conviction that cruelty must be intentional, not indifferent.
Violence is what happens somewhere else.
Done by someone else.
See you soon
Jennifer
The Gen Z Art Critic
Several newspapers quoted the phrase refering to an interview in La Repubblica, but so far, I haven’t found a link to the original statement. Here are some German newspaper examples:
taz, Der Standard