Venice Biennale Strike Planned as Protest Over Israel Participation Escalates
The 61st Venice Biennale is heading into its opening week under mounting pressure. Cultural workers and participants plan a 24-hour strike on May 8 to protest Israel’s participation in the exhibition, with a rally scheduled for 4:30pm on Viale Garibaldi, near the Arsenale site.
The action is being organized by Art Not Genocide Alliance, or ANGA, and supported by Biennalocene, Sale Docks, Mi Riconosci, Vogliamo Tutt’altro, and other cultural grassroots groups. ANGA says the strike is also backed by the Italian trade unions Associazione Difesa Lavoratori (ADL Cobas), Unione Sindacale di Base, and Confederazione Unitaria di Base.
The protest follows a letter ANGA sent last month to Biennale management, signed by more than 230 artists, curators, and art workers involved in this year’s edition. The letter demanded the cancellation of the Israeli pavilion. In its statement, ANGA described the strike as a refusal of what it calls genocide normalization in culture and of the precarious labor conditions on which the Biennale is built.
Israel is represented this year by Romanian-born sculptor Belu-Simion Fainaru, who is based in Haifa. Because the country’s permanent site in the Giardini is closed for renovation, the Israeli pavilion is instead installed at the Arsenale. Fainaru told that he opposes cultural boycotts, saying he believes in “the importance of dialogue and exchange, especially in difficult times.”
The planned strike is the latest sign of a turbulent build-up to the Biennale’s 61st edition. Last week, the event’s five-person prize jury resigned amid an escalating dispute over the participation of Israel and Russia. The jury had said it would exclude artists from countries whose leaders are subject to arrest warrants for crimes against humanity, a position widely understood to target both states.
ANGA has also pointed to what it sees as a double standard in the institution’s handling of Russia. The Russian pavilion is due to remain open for three days during the preview week, and the country’s involvement has already prompted threats from the European Union to withdraw funding from the event.
With protests, resignations, and competing claims of principle now converging in Venice, the Biennale’s political tensions are no longer peripheral to the exhibition. They are shaping its public life from the outset.
