The Venice Biennale was built to never say no — its history proves it

In 2026, the Venice Biennale is once again at the center of geopolitical tension. Russia is set to return after two editions of self-imposed absence. Israel, which withdrew in 2024, is also back. In response, letters began arriving: artists, curators, and members of the European Parliament calling for exclusion.

The Biennale did not change its position. “La Biennale di Venezia rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art.”

La Biennale di Venezia — one of the most prestigious and long-standing exhibitions in the world — has always been shaped by tensions, scandals, and recurring crises. Across its 130-year history, it has continuously adapted to changing times while remaining, in a crucial sense, unchanged.

Conceived at the end of the 19th century as an exhibition intended to benefit “the reputation of the city,” it was “open to international contact and relations,” as Venice’s mayor Riccardo Selvatico envisioned it. This embrace of the international was embedded in its spatial organisation. From 1907, permanent national pavilions began to appear in the Giardini, gradually built throughout the 20th century and now representing around 30 countries. 

National participation became structural when Antonio Fradeletto, one of the founding organisers, proposed that pavilions be constructed by participating countries at their own expense and remain their property. Within these buildings, nations would exhibit their artists, maintain the spaces, and contribute economically to the Domus. Since then, foreign pavilions have remained an actual and indestructible resource of the institution.

What began as a support system would later become a constraint. By the end of the 20th century, the model was criticised for enabling the instrumentalisation of art by national political agendas and for reflecting an outdated geopolitical order. Yet the Fradeletto formula made it irreversible: countries own their pavilions. Each edition invites them to participate, but once they accept, they operate independently from the Biennale.

The effective participation of foreign countries has made the Biennale extraordinarily vital. At the same time, it has required the institution to constantly balance international openness with political and diplomatic sensitivity. This tension has been both a source of vitality and a recurring cause of crisis.

Disagreements have followed the Biennale since its inception. The first scandal erupted in 1895, when Giacomo Grosso’s painting “Supremo Convegno” — showing a corpse surrounded by naked women — was condemned as immoral. Despite pressure from the Church, the work remained on view, discreetly placed in a side room, where it became the main attraction. The episode established a precedent: the Biennale would resist external pressure while accommodating it spatially.

Over time, that resistance extended beyond religious authority to include governments. The institution repeatedly asserted its autonomy in curatorial decisions, even as it remained entangled in political realities.

In the post-war period, particularly after the 1973 revision of its statute, independence came to include financial and ideological dimensions. The new framework enabled broader participation of “social forces,” leading to highly politicised editions under the presidency of Carlo Ripa di Meana. 

The 1974 edition, “Freedom for Chile,” transformed the Biennale into a site of cultural protest against Pinochet’s dictatorship. National pavilions were closed, replaced by a transnational exhibition centred on solidarity with Chilean artists. In 1976, “Homage to Democratic Spain” addressed the end of Franco’s regime, while refusing the official Spanish pavilion and presenting instead a major historical survey. In 1977, the “Biennale of Dissent” showcased unofficial Soviet art, provoking diplomatic tensions that led to Ripa di Meana’s resignation and a temporary withdrawal of the USSR.

A similar logic resurfaced in 1997, when Marina Abramović’s “Balkan Baroque” was included in the central exhibition after being rejected by national pavilions. Once again, the Biennale positioned itself as a space where works excluded elsewhere could remain visible.

Historically, the Biennale invoked resistance to censorship to protect artists from their states — to keep a work on the wall when a government demanded its removal, to open a door when a pavilion was closed. The same language now appears in its response to calls for exclusion. 

With each edition, international participation has expanded. Since the introduction of thematic exhibitions in the 1970s, the central pavilion has hosted global debates, while national pavilions have remained free to interpret or ignore the curatorial framework. By the 2000s, this dual system produced a complex and pluralistic panorama of contemporary art. Yet the conditions that sustained it — particularly those of neoliberal globalisation — are now shifting.

What has changed is the direction of that protection. The principle that once allowed the Biennale to oppose states now prevents it from excluding them. Because participation is embedded in its structure, refusal becomes almost impossible. 

In previous controversies, tension emerged through exclusion: a pavilion closed, a work removed, a country refused. Today, the structure holds. 

Russia returns. Israel is back. The Biennale does not exclude — it accommodates. Outside the official programme, alternative forms of expression persist. Artists have long occupied palazzos, industrial spaces, and public squares, staging parallel exhibitions, protests, and performances. These practices create a counterpoint to official narratives, introducing friction into the system. 

This year, that friction may take a different form. Official representation risks proceeding without direct institutional challenge, leaving dissent to unfold alongside it rather than against it. Proposals such as Pietrangelo Buttafuoco’s idea to revisit the “Biennale of Dissent” suggest an attempt to reintroduce conflict within the central exhibition itself. 

Together with the unofficial initiatives already planned, this coexistence may enrich the overall panorama. The Biennale continues to function as a space where contradictions are not resolved but displayed.

Somewhere outside the Russian pavilion, Pussy Riot will be making noise. Inside, the official programme will proceed. Visitors will move between the two — as they always have, as the structure allows. The Biennale does not resolve the tension. It makes it visible.