Venice Biennale Faces Fresh Pressure as Anish Kapoor Calls for U.S. Ban
The politics surrounding the Venice Biennale have sharpened again, this time with one of contemporary art’s most prominent figures weighing in directly. British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor (b. 1954) said the United States should be banned from the 2026 edition of the Biennale, while also praising the jury’s recent mass resignation as “courageous.”
In comments to The Guardian, Kapoor said he hoped the jury would have gone further and excluded the U.S. for what he described as its “abhorrent politics of hate” and “incessant warmongering.” The jury had previously said it would not consider awards for national pavilions from countries charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
The statement lands in the middle of a broader dispute that has shadowed the Biennale in recent months. Israel and Russia’s participation, along with the selection of American artist Alma Allen (b. 1970) for the U.S. Pavilion, has drawn criticism from dozens of artists and some curatorial advisers involved in the main exhibition, “In Minor Keys.” Those signatories called for the exclusion of all three pavilions in an open letter.
The Biennale has responded that it does not have the authority to exclude any nation recognized in Italy and that it “rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art.” Russia is participating for the first time since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In 2024, it ceded its pavilion to Bolivia rather than take part.
Israel, meanwhile, will present its pavilion inside the Arsenale rather than at its Giardini site, which it says needs renovations. The pavilion became a focal point for demonstrations during the 2024 Biennale, when artist Ruth Patir (b. 1984) refused to open her exhibition until hostages taken by Hamas were released and a ceasefire was reached in Gaza. Neither condition was met, and the pavilion never opened.
As the 2026 Biennale approaches, the dispute underscores how national pavilions remain one of the event’s most politically charged structures — and one of the hardest to separate from the conflicts beyond Venice.
