#venice-biennale

#venice-biennale

In January 2026, South African artist Gabrielle Goliath's pavilion for the Venice Biennale was cancelled by the country's Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, after Goliath refused to remove references to Gaza from her acclaimed long-term performance project 'Elegy' (2015-ongoing). Despite this all-too-familiar political scandal, the multi-channel video installation was mounted off-site in the Chiesa di Sant'Antonin, as an independent exhibition, realized in partnership with Ibraaz and other supporters.

As Somalia's first-ever national pavilion debuts at the 61st Venice Biennale, a coalition of local cultural organizations says that artists based in the country "were not meaningfully consulted, included, or recognised in a process that should have belonged to the nation more broadly."

Dozens of artists taking part in this year's Venice Biennale have withdrawn themselves from consideration for the newly created Visitor Lion awards, which this year are replacing the Gold and Silver Lion prizes, typically considered among the most coveted accolades in the international art world.

In 2003, Su Xiaobai was advised by Gerhard Richter to abandon oils and concentrate on his explorations of lacquer, according to Stephen Little, curator of Asian art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma). Su took that advice, and now only works in lacquer, sometimes using immense quantities of the tree sap to produce contemplative works that form a bridge between Chinese artistic traditions and European abstraction.

More than 70 artists participating in this year's Venice Biennale say they do not want to be considered for the prestigious Golden Lion awards, which this year will be chosen by public vote.

Visitors at the Venice Biennale preview encountered a historic sight on Friday: Palestinian flags draped over artworks and more than two dozen shuttered national pavilions. As part of a 24-hour strike organized by the Art Not Genocide Alliance and local activist groups, thousands marched down one of Venice's main streets as Italian police beat back protesters. Editor-in-Chief Hakim Bishara reports from the thick of the action at the first cultural strike in the Biennale's 131-year history.

A journalist; storytelling is my craft. Words are the tools I turn to, again and again, to make sense of events and shape them into narratives that do them justice. And yet, when it comes to the genocide in Gaza, my birthplace, language feels wholly inadequate. There is a limit to what words can say. At a certain point, the instinct to describe, to explain and to make sense of what has unfolded begins to break down under the sheer scale of devastation and pain.

Artists and cultural workers made history at the Venice Biennale today as they launched a major strike that disrupted the pre-opening of the international exhibition. It is the first cultural strike in the biennale's 131-year history. At least 27 of the exhibition's 100 national pavilions were partially or fully shut down this morning, May 8, while some artists draped or altered their works in the main exhibition In Minor Keys as part of a 24-hour strike for Palestine and for workers' rights.

Without the limits of a single location [as we had in London], we are well positioned to bring world-class exhibitions to wherever an art-related dialogue is needed most. I wanted to focus the importance of the East-West link, at the time in which the East has established itself as a huge force in every aspect: presenting this exhibition in Venice is a must.

This time around, the country's entry—an audio-video installation by the Polish artists Bogna Burska and Daniel Kotowski—is less likely to cause such friction, with the more progressive side of the art scene currently coexisting more comfortably with Tusk's coalition government than was the case under the previous regime.

Alma Allen's United States pavilion at the Venice Biennale says nothing, does nothing, means nothing, and goes nowhere. The pavilion features a series of amorphous, nature-inspired sculptures - all untitled - made of bronze, wood, and stone. A breeze is something refreshing, nourishing, mood-altering. However, I left Allen's pavilion feeling the same as I did before. Nothing.

Villinger noted that Naumann grappled with the question of whether her role as a representative of Germany made her a 'state artist,' akin to her grandfather, who faced reprimand for his work.

"Our goal is to bring attention to the artists in Gaza and to show our solidarity with our community," one member of the group told The Art Newspaper. He was wearing a T-shirt with the name of Halima Kahlout, who was killed in 2023 along with ten members of her family.

We've placed a kind of veil of metal shutters over the building. It transforms what is normally an iconic, light-filled pavilion into a closed, bunker-like space. It is a representation of the Netherlands, or Europe, or the Global North as a space that is increasingly entrenched.

Labor unions, grassroots groups, and artists plan to withhold their labor on Friday, May 8, with a call to 'shut down the genocide pavilion.'

"This is the first time in 30 years that I've felt the need to explain myself. I think there's been a bit of confusion about the whole thing. To some people, everything is political."

Sung Tieu's monumental work suggests how easily one regime can be supplanted by another, cloaking the facade of the German Pavilion with a reconstruction of a communist housing complex.

Maja Malou Lyse's project 'Bombshell, Boom' revolves around the Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet's infamous 'Page-9 Girl' column, which has faced criticism for publishing images of underage girls. In a bold response, she cropped women's eyes from a current Page-9 Girl and displayed them on a monumental LED billboard, reversing the historical gaze that objectified the models.

A small but rollicking protest against Jeff Bezos, who co-chaired this year's Met Gala, unfolded blocks from the museum while celebrities filed into the event last night. On Sunday, a series of projections condemning Amazon lit up the billionaire's Madison Square Park luxury residence.

Anish Kapoor stated that the US should be excluded from the Venice Biennale due to its 'abhorrent politics of hate and its incessant warmongering.' He commended the jury's decision to resign in protest against Israel and Russia's inclusion but expressed hope that they would have also excluded the US.