Reportage
100+ artists and nations call on Biennale to stop Israel’s ‘artwashing’
Artists and over a dozen national pavilion teams tried to have Israel’s pavilion shut down by sending a letter to the Biennale's leadership reminding them of the genocide in Gaza. The letter was ignored.
They called it “the genocide pavilion.” At the Israeli pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale, visitors are greeted by highly courteous staff who hand out beautiful canvas bags stuffed with elegant brochures. Belu-Simion Fainaru’s art installation, The Rose of Nothingness, consists of a large rectangular pool lined with black fabric where drops of water fall to symbolize the tears shed by Jews during the Holocaust – tears that in the future would serve to fertilize the Promised Land. According to the curators' stated intentions, the installation is nothing more than a message of peace and brotherhood.
However, 113 international artists and 18 national pavilion teams united under the banner of ANGA (Art Not Genocide Alliance) – an international collective of art sector workers – tried to have the pavilion shut down by sending a letter to the Biennale's leadership reminding them that a genocide is currently taking place in that Promised Land. The letter was ignored.
At the last edition of the international exhibition two years ago, protests and pressure did nevertheless succeed in getting Israel's national pavilion moved from the Giardini to the Tese dell'Arsenale, an area considered less central but more controllable in the event of protests. But that solution did not yield the results the organizers had hoped. Late Thursday morning, on the occasion of the second opening day of the 61st Art Biennale, ANGA activists staged a fierce protest against the presence of the Israeli pavilion, which was effectively forced to close its doors for over three hours with artists and curators barricaded inside, protected by a police cordon. The protagonists of the initiative were a couple hundred people, including exhibitors, curators from other pavilions and workers, who were spontaneously joined by just as many visitors – mostly from abroad – giving the demonstration a marked international character. It should be noted that during these pre-opening days, entry to the Biennale is restricted exclusively to art critics, artists, journalists and industry professionals via private invitation.
The initiative kicked off at 12:30 p.m., with Palestinian flags flying in the wind, banners against the genocide, pro-Palestinian slogans and flyers tossed into the air calling for a boycott of Israel and all complicit nations. The demonstration concluded with a march along the Tese dell'Arsenale. “What we are up against,” an ANGA spokesperson shouted through a megaphone, “is an attempt at artwashing. Art is being used to clean up the image of a genocidal state whose leaders are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.” In all of this, the Biennale “is complicit,” the spokesperson stressed.
ANGA is also calling for a boycott of the pavilions of all those nations that support Israel. For this purpose, the collective distributed a brochure listing, country by country, the level of collaboration with Benjamin Netanyahu's government. There is naturally a section for Italy as well, which continues to supply Tel Aviv with military equipment.
But the protests against the “genocide pavilion” will not stop here. For Friday, ANGA, Biennalocene, S.a.L.E. Docks, the USB and Cobas grassroots unions and other associations have called a 24-hour strike. It will be the first workers' strike in the entire history of the Biennale. “No artist or cultural worker,” their statement reads, “should be asked to share a platform with a state accused of genocide.”
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/biennale-piu-di-cento-artisti-no-allartwashing-di-israele on 2026-05-07