The Russian Federation announced its decision to reclaim its place at the 61st Venice Art Biennale at the last possible moment, not without a touch of theatricality. Mikhail Shvydkoi, former Minister of Culture of Russia and, since 2008, Special Envoy of the President of the Russian Federation for International Cultural Cooperation, stated that Russia is not returning to Venice — it never left. By this logic, the country was present “in spirit” at the last two Biennales.
In 2022, following the start of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the Russian pavilion was closed after curator Raimundas Malašauskas and artists Alexandra Sukhareva and Kirill Savchenkov refused to participate in protest. In 2024, it was outsourced to Bolivia, apparently to flaunt Russia’s ‘care’ for progressive nations of the Global South.
This was not the first time that the Russian pavilion either remained closed or hosted exhibitions entirely unrelated to Russian art. Built in 1914 by Alexei Shchusev in the Pseudo-Russian style it was ironically funded by Ukrainian collector and philanthropist Bogdan Khanenko precisely because Russian imperial officials had ignored the international art exhibition. After World War I and the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union returned to Venice in 1924 but skipped the 1926 exhibition under a 1925 Politburo decree “On the Undesirability of Participation in Art Exhibitions Abroad.” Yet the pavilion was not entirely abandoned: it was “kindly made available” to host the Italian Futurism show curated by Tommaso Marinetti, which became one of the Biennale’s main events.
From 1938 to 1954, the Russian pavilion remained closed amid political turmoil leading up to and following World War II. Soviet artists returned to Venice only after Stalin’s death and the onset of the Khrushchev Thaw. In 1977, however, the Biennale of Dissent, curated by Enrico Crispolti and Gabriella Moncada and featuring numerous works by Soviet and Eastern Bloc nonconformist artists, was seen in Moscow as a provocation. The USSR’s Central Committee urgently discussed the vital necessity to take “steps to resist anti-Soviet propaganda in Italy,” leading to a boycott of the Venice Biennale by Moscow and its allies, which lasted until 1982.
Just as the Soviet Union had twice abstained from Venice, in 2022 the Biennale itself turned its back on Russia. Officials protested the war in Ukraine, stating:
“As long as this situation persists, La Biennale rejects any form of collaboration with those who, on the contrary, have carried out or supported such a grievous act of aggression, and will therefore not accept the presence at any of its events of official delegations, institutions, or persons tied in any capacity to the Russian government.”
By the fourth year of the war, however, Venice’s stance shifted. Despite the conflict continuing, the Biennale signaled readiness to welcome Russian participation — a change closely linked to the appointment of Pietrangelo Buttafuoco as president. Buttafuoco is among several right-wing officials appointed by the Giorgia Meloni government to lead Italian cultural institutions.
He began his political career in the Fronte della Gioventù (Youth Front), the youth wing of the post-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), and later gained prominence as a right-wing journalist. He has publicly expressed a preference for Putin over Trump, calling the Russian leader “the only true right-wing statesman,” and, after the start of the war in Ukraine, criticized what he saw as Europe’s uniform condemnation of Russian actions. It is not surprising that Buttafuoco stated: “All countries currently at war will be here in Venice. I am open to everyone; I don’t close the door to anyone… There will be Russia, Iran, Israel.”
Although the latest official list of national pavilions includes the Islamic Republic of Iran, it seems that, at present, the country has more pressing matters than international art exhibitions. For the Russian Federation, however, this approach has proved an unexpected godsend.
Mikhail Shvydkoi proudly claimed that attempts to “cancel” Russian culture had failed, insisting that art exists beyond politics. The statement is especially striking coming from someone who just last year called for a return to Soviet-style political censorship. Equally audacious is Russia’s effort to appropriate Simone Weil — the French philosopher, Marxist, anti-fascist, and mystic — whose thought is hardly compatible with contemporary Putinist ideology.
The Russian pavilion, titled with Weil’s metaphor “The Tree is Rooted in the Sky,” is, according to Shvydkoi, meant to show how “eternity prevails over momentary concerns, culture over politics.” The presidential envoy lamented that “unfortunately, not everyone is capable of understanding this.”
Another victory over ”momentary concerns” came with the appointment of Anastasia Karneeva as commissar of the Russian pavilion. Karneeva is the daughter of Nikolay Volobuev, a senior executive at the state corporation Rostec and a former general of the Federal Security Service (FSB). Rostec is a state-owned defense conglomerate closely linked to Russia’s military-industrial complex. Karneeva is also co-owner of the company Smart Art, which she founded with Ekaterina Vinokurova, daughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The Russian performance in Venice was scheduled for a grand total of three days, just before the official Biennale opening. Yet Moscow somehow managed to pack in 50 “young musicians, poets, and philosophers from Russia and abroad.” The philosophers are nowhere to be seen, but the musicians are well represented: from contemporary composer Alexey Retinsky to the folk ensemble Toloka, and Serafim Chaikin, soloist of the Danilov Monastery Festival Choir.
Most of the artists are virtually unknown and barely leave a digital footprint. The “international” element — a handful of obscure DJs from Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina — seems like a karaoke version of Soviet Third-Worldism circa 1960s. And then there’s DJ Diaki from Mali, whose country has been ravaged since 2021 first by the Wagner group and then by other Russian mercenaries committing crimes against humanity — a choice so cynical it borders on performance art itself.
The performances will allegedly be filmed and displayed on the pavilion walls until the end of the Biennale.
However, this “counteroffensive” of Russian culture immediately provoked protests. The Italian Ministry of Culture wisely chose to distance itself from the decision to invite Russia back to Venice, issuing a statement placing full responsibility on the Biennale administration and emphasizing that the move contradicts official Italian government policy.
On March 7, the open letter Stop the Normalization of War Crimes Through Art was published on Change.org. The letter, protesting Russian participation, was signed by numerous prominent figures, including Italian politician Pina Picierno, Vice-President of the European Parliament; Russian opposition figures such as Garry Kasparov, former World Chess Champion; historian Timothy Garton Ash; Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, founder of the TBA21 Foundation; Viktor Yushchenko, the third President of Ukraine; Anne Appelbaum, a U.S. journalist and historian; Joaquín Almunia, Secretary General of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party; Anne-Solène Rolland, General Director of the Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris; Éric de Chassey, Director of Beaux-Arts de Paris; and dozens of museum directors, curators, artists, and academics from the UK, Spain, Germany, France, Poland, and other countries.
It remains to be seen how the Biennale leadership will respond. However, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco’s idea of inviting to the Biennale “all countries currently at war” has already, in effect, brought the war to Venice. If this invitation is not withdrawn, the 61st Biennale risks becoming a Biennale of constant protests — one of which has already been announced by Nadya Tolokonnikova, founding member of the feminist group Pussy Riot and a signatory of the open letter.
Art historian, exhibition curator, investigative journalist. Lives in Kyiv.