Iran Says It Still Plans to Join the Venice Biennale as Unofficial Pavilion Project Emerges
Iran’s cultural ministry says the country is still preparing for the Venice Biennale, contradicting an earlier report that it had withdrawn from the exhibition. On Tuesday, Aydin Mahdizadeh Tehrani, the director-general of visual arts at Iran’s ministry of culture and Islamic guidance, told the Iran Students News Agency that Iran “never withdrew” and remains in consultation with Biennale organizers.
Tehrani said the ministry had already submitted a plan for participation and expected a response within days. He added that officials sent a letter on May 10 insisting the Iranian Pavilion should open even if the country can no longer compete for Golden Lions. The ministry, he said, is still working through several obstacles, including sanctions on Iran, the high cost of renting pavilion space, the absence of permanent Iranian cultural infrastructure in Italy, and the ongoing war with Israel and the US.
The comments complicate last week’s report that Iran had dropped out of the Biennale. They also suggest that the country’s presence in Venice may take a different form than originally expected. Tehrani said the ministry is planning “a completely new and different project” built around new technology and approaches, and he said the proposed exhibition could travel to other European cities after Venice.
At the same time, a separate group claiming to represent the Iran Pavilion announced the Hyperstitional Pavilion of Iran and its exhibition, “Hulul: On Incarnation and Incantation.” Curated by Pouya Jafari and Nazli Jan Parvar, the project includes work by Real Iran, Dast Dastan, Zendan-e Eskandar, Mogh Kouh, and Dorna. It is being facilitated by Perpetuum Mobile, a Finland-based arts nonprofit, and is said to be located in the Giardini.
Yet “Hulul” remains absent from the Biennale’s official website, and its formal relationship to the Iranian state is unclear. That split between official diplomacy and an independently framed pavilion reflects a broader tension that has shaped many international exhibitions in recent years: who gets to speak for a nation, and under what conditions, when politics and art are inseparable.
