Middle East Eye
Venice Biennale targeted by strike action and protests over Israel's involvement
Venice Biennale targeted by strike action and protests over Israel's involvement
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Oscar Rickett
on
Thu, 05/07/2026 - 11:48
A 24-hour cultural strike called by international and Italian unions and activist groups will take place on Friday
The Art Not Genocide Alliance protests against Israel's involvement in the Venice Biennale, in Venice, Italy, on 6 May 2026 (Anga)
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Protests will take place on Friday against Israel’s participation in the Venice Biennale, with a 24-hour cultural strike called by a coalition of Italian and international unions and activist groups.
The strike, which is the first to be organised within the prestigious arts festival, follows protests on its first day of Russia and Israel’s involvement.
On Wednesday, the Art Not Genocide Alliance (Anga) organised a direct action in solidarity with Palestine outside the Israeli pavilion at the Venice Biennale’s Arsenale complex.
Hundreds of protesters, holding signs including “No artwashing genocide” and “No genocide pavilion”, gathered for speeches by artists and artworkers exhibiting and working at this year’s Biennale.
All of them were protesting against Israel's inclusion in the festival. Israel has killed scores of Palestinian artists and destroyed many cultural and artistic sites during its genocide in Gaza.
“We are here to express our refusal to tolerate genocidal destruction in the name of freedom,” Anga said in a statement.
The direct action follows the refusal of the Biennale’s directors to respond to a letter sent to them by Anga on 17 March demanding the immediate exclusion of the Israeli pavilion.
The letter has been signed by 236 artists, curators and workers participating in this year’s festival. International artists Alfredo Jaar, Brian Eno, Lubaina Himid, Yto Barrada and Cauleen Smith are among those who have signed the letter.
“No artist or cultural worker should be asked to share a platform with this genocidal state. As long as Israel exists by means of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, it must not be represented at the Venice Biennale,” the letter read.
“We remind you that Israeli violence also targets the art and culture supposedly held sacrosanct by the Biennale,” it said.
Protesters outside Israel's pavilion at the Venice Biennale on 6 May 2026 (Matteo de Mayda)
In March, Anga told Middle East Eye that its demand was directed at “state representation, not at individuals”, including Israeli artists.
“A national pavilion at the Venice Biennale is an official cultural representation of that state,” Anga said, adding that it did not believe that artists who oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza and aggressive expansion in the occupied West Bank “should be used as cultural cover for state violence”.
“In fact, the current arrangement places artists in an impossible position by asking them to legitimise Israel’s presence regardless of their personal views,” the group said.
Israel and the Venice Biennale
The world-famous Biennale, which opens to the public on Saturday but holds events this week, alternates every year between an exhibition of art and then architecture.
It hosts 29 permanent national pavilions in the Venice Giardini, where artists chosen by their countries exhibit.
Israel’s pavilion, which was opened in 1952, is one of the permanent sites. At the last art Biennale in 2024, many months after Israel’s genocide in Gaza had begun, Anga launched a campaign against Israel’s participation with an open letter that was signed by over 24,000 people.
'We are here to express our refusal to tolerate genocidal destruction in the name of freedom'
– Art Not Genocide Alliance
The pavilion was eventually shut down by Ruth Patir, the Israeli artist due to show work at it. In 2025, Israel did not participate in the architecture Biennale, with its culture ministry saying it needed to renovate the pavilion.
Patir’s closure of the national pavilion in 2024 prompted the Israeli government to introduce a clause into the contract for the 2026 Biennale requiring the selected artist to ensure that the pavilion stays open.
But this year’s Israeli entry is not being exhibited at the pavilion. Ordinarily, this would mean Israel would have to rent a space on the private market, but the Biennale allowed Israel to move to a temporary space at the Venice Arsenale, a complex of former shipyards and armouries that serves as an exhibition space.
Anga described this decision as an “explicit institutional endorsement at a moment of escalating violence”.
Cultural strike
On Friday, a 24-hour strike of the cultural sector has been called by Anga, Biennalocene, Sale Docks, Mi Riconosci, Vogliamo Tutt’altro, and other national and local cultural grassroots organisations, together with the Italian trade unions Associazione Difesa Lavoratori (ADL Cobas), Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), and Confederazione Unitaria di Base (CUB).
Italian unions have previously organised industrial action at the country’s ports, with dockworkers refusing to load military and other cargo bound for Israel.
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“This is the first ever organised strike to occur within the Biennale,” Anga said. “It will be a crucial moment, bringing together different organisations and sending a clear message during the pre-opening days of the Biennale.”
As well as Israel, the Biennale has faced criticism for allowing Russia to return to the exhibition for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine. While the Italian culture ministry has welcomed Israel’s participation, it has criticised Russian involvement.
The Russian entry is led by Anastasia Karneeva, the daughter of a former intelligence officer, and Ekaterina Vinokurova, the daughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
At a press conference on Wednesday the Biennale’s chairman, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, a right-wing Sicilian journalist who converted to Islam in 2015, addressed Russia’s return.
“This whole world born of the French revolution, the Enlightenment and secularism has flipped into its exact opposite: a laboratory of intolerance, and demands for censorship, closure and exclusion,” he said.
“The Biennale is not a court; it is a garden of peace. We cannot shut it down, we cannot boycott as an automatic response. We must discuss. We may disagree, and we do so forcefully.”
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