#51 Post-biennale
My personal dissociation from (and theory of) "the art inside" + the discourse that replaced it as its primary object.
Good afternoon, reading all the pieces and commentary coming out around this year’s Venice Biennale has been feeling like criticism of a discourse that has displaced its object. It’s like watching a play and discussing, through its themes and motif, the world at large. The difference is that the Biennale is a real (life) event, while other artistic and literary forms are created, to some extent, as metaphors—actors and characters and plotlines specifically constructed to reflect on and critique real life.
The 61st International Art Exhibition, titled In Minor Keys, has undoubtedly stirred a lot of criticism, particularly for its failure to demonstrate the ethics it professes to embody. There’s been a pouring rain of protests against the inclusion of Russia (returning after its artists withdrew in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine), Israel (whose pavilion remained shuttered in 2024 after artist Ruth Patir refused to open it), and the United States (whose selection process this year was rewritten to require artists to “reflect and promote American values” while disqualifying any work touching on diversity, equity and inclusion).
On April 30, 2026, just nine days before opening, The Biennale’s entire five-member jury—led by Brazilian curator Solange Farkas—resigned, announcing they would not award prizes to countries whose leaders face ICC arrest warrants for crimes against humanity. Dozens of artists, including Laurie Anderson, Alfredo Jaar, and Zoe Leonard, withdrew from awards consideration in solidarity. France, Ecuador, and the United Arab Emirates followed.
Pussy Riot stormed the Russian pavilion in pink balaclavas and slogan-criticisms that read “Enjoy the show – Ignore the war.” During the vernissage, Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) and thousands marched against Israel’s presence, carrying it even to the streets of Venice, prompting the UK, Japan, and Finland pavilions to shutter briefly while artists and curators joined the procession. The European Commission threatened to pull €2 million in funding over Russia’s inclusion. Italy’s culture minister refused to attend the opening event. South Africa’s pavilion stands empty after its artist Gabrielle Goliath declined to remove tributes to a Palestinian poet who was killed by Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in October 2023.
That is all to say, the Biennale has stopped being a vehicle or vessel through which we discuss the world, but a stage that reenacts the very events of that real world in miniature. The response to the politics of decision-making, the collapse of morality, and games of diplomacy that unfold around the exhibition are what writers, thinkers, artists find more worthy to respond and react to.
There may be different answers as to what the purpose of a biennale is. In the simplest terms, I would say it’s to open questions—to ask audiences to think critically about urgent matters through the lens of curation. More personally, I’ve always seen the point of any artistic or curatorial production as connection: to connect with the world, with ourselves, our bodies, our neighbours, our friends—emotionally, intellectually, or otherwise.
That, to me, describes the direct relationship a biennale should have with its object. The ambition of a platform like the Biennale is (or at least should be) to present and gather works that encourage (or provoke) people feel and think what’s at stake, or deepen their existing thinking‑feeling relationship to that subject.
What we see now is a different dynamic, where the institution—already strained—has reached a kind of peak failure, where we no longer discuss how the art fails to achieve its stakes, but rather the protests, the jury’s resignations, the cancellation of awards, empty pavillions, and so on. The Biennale is quite literally stripped of its content that is meaningful enough to become the object of any discourse or critique around it.
There’s of course the argument that we’re just (or finally) talking about what matters—and that it hardly matters whether it’s the art or the protests doing the talking. Still, I feel a certain detachment from the event itself, that is hard to engage with due to all the layers of meta‑criticism. Everything unfolding at the Biennale—politically and ethically—is a reflection of the real world failing humanity, and therefore feels “more important” than the art inside it, which is, incidentally, trying to address those same failures. In the end, we’re still dealing with the same themes—climate change, colonial settlement, extraction, exploitation, and so on—just no longer through the art, but through the events condemning the Biennale’s moral and bureaucratic collapse.
I wasn’t at the biennale (in any capacity) this year. Everything I read, consume, or comment on comes through the internet, the secondary discourse that circulates across feeds and newsletters. But that is kind of my point. I’ve certainly seen more commentary on the discourse than on the art in the exhibition itself, and what I’m writing (and motivated to write) is a critique of the discourse around the biennale rather than a review of the biennale itself. But that in itself just conveys my entire point.
From the ArtReview opinion piece by Jenny Wu I read earlier this morning:
This is quintessential biennale art: visually seductive, responsibly researched, culturally portable and diplomatic, a protest conducted with fine-print slogans and no concrete demands. It all, in the end, feels increasingly lifeless, like a relic from a bygone era of neoliberal globalisation. In Minor Keys is what’s been called a ‘posthumous exhibition’ – due to Kouoh’s sudden death last May – but perhaps what is really being mourned is the institution of the biennale itself: the fantasy of a cultural Olympics where political antagonisms can be temporarily sublimated through aesthetic experience and euphemistic commentary.
And from the jury’s statement of intention prior to their resignation:
In this, we stand in solidarity to embrace Koyo Kouoh’s own curatorial statement:
In refusing the spectacle of horror, the time has come to listen to the minor keys, to tune in sotto voce to the whispers, to the lower frequencies; to find the oases, the islands, where the dignity of all living beings is safeguarded.
Later this week I’ll see you for a weekly roundup (do let me know what you enjoy to read or would like to read more of) and below are links to more ways to connect.
Take care,
Melis