"The current administration of the Venice Biennale of Art is actively ensuring the presence and participation of a state that was founded on the ethnic cleansing and illegal occupation of Palestine - a state that is currently 27 months into conducting a brutal genocide in Gaza. A state that has killed, maimed, and destroyed indiscriminately, with at least 72,045 people dead, many tens of thousands more missing under the rubble."
"A boycott targets the infrastructure of complicity - in this instance, the social and cultural normalization of Israel's genocide in Gaza. The Biennale has made a very deliberate and demonstrative choice to allocate Israel a space in the Arsenale while its national pavilion is shut, instead of forcing them to seek an alternative space in the city."
The 2026 Venice Biennale will feature Israeli artist Belu-Simion Fainaru despite Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza. The Biennale administration deliberately allocated space in the Arsenale while keeping Israel's national pavilion closed for renovation, ensuring Israeli participation rather than exclusion. This decision actively normalizes a state founded on Palestinian ethnic cleansing and illegal occupation. Israel has killed over 72,000 people in Gaza, destroyed over 80% of infrastructure, escalated violence in the West Bank and Lebanon, and violated ceasefire agreements repeatedly. The Biennale's choice represents institutional complicity in these atrocities through cultural normalization.
Read at Hyperallergic
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