The European Commission has warned it could withdraw funding from the Venice Biennale after organizers decided to allow Russia to participate for the first time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier this month, the international exhibition declared that Russia would be allowed to participate this year, saying the decision reflects its opposition to “any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art.”
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The event is held every two years and this year will take place between May and November.
In a joint statement on Tuesday, Technology Commissioner Henna Virkkunen and Culture Commissioner Glenn Micallef said the move to bring back Russia’s pavilion after four years was “not compatible with the EU’s collective response to Russia’s brutal aggression.”
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“Member States, institutions and organisations must act in line with EU sanctions and avoid giving a platform to individuals who have actively supported or justified the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine,” they added.
If Russia’s participation goes ahead, they will “examine further action, including the suspension or termination of an ongoing EU grant to the Biennale Foundation,” which organizes the event, the statement read.
More than 6,000 artists, academics, curators, journalists and political figures signed an open letter this week urging the leadership of the Venice Biennale to “address the implications” of allowing Russia to participate.
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Italy’s government has also come out in opposition to the Biennale’s move, saying it was made “entirely independently” of Rome’s wishes.
Although organizers of the Venice Biennale never officially barred Russia, the country has been absent from the event since its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine has also protested the decision. “The Venice Biennale is one of the world’s most authoritative art platforms, and it must not become a stage for whitewashing the war crimes that Russia commits daily against the Ukrainian people and our cultural heritage,” said Andriy Sybiha, the foreign minister, and Tetyana Berezhna, the culture minister, in a statement over the weekend.
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“We call on the organisers of the Venice Biennale to reconsider their decision to allow the Russian Federation to return and to maintain the principled position demonstrated in 2022-2024,” they added.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has gloated, with Mikhail Shvydkoi, Vladimir Putin’s special representative for international cultural cooperation, describing the decision as “further proof that Russian culture is not isolated and that attempts to silence it – undertaken over the last four years by Western political elites – have failed.”