Israel Plots Venice Biennale Return as Artists Threaten a Boycott

Israel will officially participate in the 2026 Venice Biennale, which was closed to the public two years ago due to protests on the opening day. But this time, the pavilion will not be held at Israel’s dedicated venue in Giardini. Instead, it will appear in the Armory.

Sculptor Belu-Simion Fainaru, who is representing Israel this year, said this is because Giardini’s Israel pavilion is under construction. during phone conversation art newsThe Haifa-based artist said he was delighted to have the opportunity to exhibit alongside countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, whose pavilions are located at the Armory.

“This experience is really great because now I have the opportunity to be in an old building instead of a modern building like the Israel Pavilion,” said the artist, who received the state-awarded Israel Prize.

Reaction on social media has been less than positive. The Alliance for Art Not Genocide (ANGA), an artist-run organization that protested Israel’s participation in the last biennale, called this year’s entry a “genocide pavilion” in an Instagram post. The post, published on Monday, currently has more than 1,500 likes.

Fainaru, who was born in Romania and represented the country at the 2019 Venice Biennale, will work with curators Sorin Heller and Avital Bar-Shay to realize the pavilion. Fainaru and Bar-Shay previously collaborated at the 2024 Mediterranean Biennale in Haifa, which featured Fainaru’s work, times of israel Described as a wall clock, “set to turn backwards as people wish to travel back in time, to October 6th”.

Fainaru’s pavilion will be called “The Rose of Nothingness” and will center around an installation about water. Inspired by poet Paul Celan’s concept of black milk, the installation will involve 16 pipes dripping black water into a pool, with 16 referring to the number symbolizing transformation in the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah.

“This installation resembles the spatial embodiment of a living Talmud page: a text without letters in which knowledge crystallizes through wandering, gazing and concentration,” a description of the pavilion sent to us art news read. “The installation’s meaning is embodied in the tension between one drop and the next, between presence and absence, calling on the viewer to become an active participant in the ongoing experience of time, memory and consciousness.”

While the Israeli Culture Ministry has yet to officially announce the pavilion, Heller, one of the curators, first hinted at the exhibition in a post on LinkedIn. But it received wider attention through ANGA’s Instagram post, which also reiterated the group’s protest of the Israel Pavilion on Monday. ANGA had threatened to boycott the Biennale in October.

“ANGA reiterates its call for the Biennale to exclude Israel from the upcoming Biennale,” the organization wrote on social media. “There can be no room for repair, healing or cultural dialogue until the State of Israel is brought to justice for its crimes.”

ANGA said it chose to protest again because Israel “continues to commit genocide despite the so-called ‘ceasefire’ announced on October 10, 2025.” According to the Gaza government, Israeli attacks have killed more than 440 Palestinians since the ceasefire began. Israel claimed it was in response to actions by Hamas, which it said violated the ceasefire.

Fainaru said he disagreed with ANGA’s approach. “Conversation is the best way to express yourself,” he said. “I am totally against boycotts, not just in Venice.” Furthermore, he said, his installation “will be a vision of hope and human emotion, the complete opposite of resistance and exclusion, giving space to everyone.”

ANGA’s post states, “Follow the principles of PACBI [Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel]we do not call for the exclusion of any individual artist. Instead, we demand the exclusion of the State of Israel, which continues to commit genocide despite the so-called ‘ceasefire’ announced by Israel on October 10, 2025. “The group did not respond art newsRequests for comment were requested by press time.

Past protests in support of Israel’s exclusion from exhibitions have been rejected by the Venice Biennale, which in 2024 said it had no authority to kick out any country recognized by Italy. To this end, Iran, which is facing protests from feminist groups, is also included in the exhibition. (Russia has not participated in the Biennale since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, nor did it voluntarily, the Biennale said.) Palestine is not recognized as a state by Italy and has never had an official national pavilion, although curators have supported it by mounting exhibitions alongside the Biennale, so-called side events, or exhibitions organized under the auspices of the Biennale.

Gennaro Sangiuliano, Italy’s culture minister at the time, struck a clearer point, calling ANGA’s efforts “shameful.”

Eventually, Israel participated in the 2024 Venice Biennale, but it was never opened to the public. Ruth Patir, an artist representing Israel, said she had decided to close her pavilion until Hamas releases hostages on October 7 and Israel imposes a ceasefire, neither of which occurred during the Venice Biennale. (Hamas has released all living hostages as part of the current ceasefire.)

There have been doubts since last spring whether Israel would participate in the 2026 Biennale. haaretz Reports say the pavilion is facing budget problems due to the renovation of the Giardini building. Notably, Israel is not participating in the 2025 Architecture Biennale, despite having built pavilions for the exhibition in the past. The Israeli Culture Ministry did not respond art newsRequest for comment.

Other pavilions are also facing uncertainty for different reasons. Just last week, for example, South Africa canceled a planned pavilion because its chosen artist, Gabrielle Goliath, wanted to display a work about Israel’s war in Gaza. South Africa’s culture minister claimed the work was “polarizing”; the artist said she was being censored. Last year, Australia revoked the appointment of Khaled Sabsabi as its museum artist after some publications raised concerns about the Hezbollah leader’s past work, but later reinstated him after an outcry over censorship.

Fenaroo said he hopes his pavilion can survive this tense time. “Art is a place for dialogue, not exclusion,” he said. “It’s one of the main places to overcome politics and try to express people’s voices freely without borders. The politics of exclusion also makes its way into art and culture, and it gets a little bit lost in humanity. Dialogue is important.”