This year’s Venice Biennale may not have its traditional Golden Lion awards, but Italian cultural minster Alessandro Giuli has revealed the person he thought won this year’s edition: Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nation made its Biennale return to this year to great controversy.
“There’s no doubt about it. Putin won at the Biennale,” Giuli, who repeatedly denounced Russia’s presence at the event, told the Italian publication Corriere della Sera last week.
He added that “it doesn’t seem to me that there are people in the Russian pavilion in a position to express dissent against their regime, which is under sanctions. I don’t think the Russian artists currently performing inside the Biennale pavilion are agents of Moscow disguised as artists, but artists from the free world certainly have the right to express dissent against those who govern them.”
Russia’s pavilion was widely denounced by activists, artists, and politicians, many of whom called on the Biennale to remove the nation from its official participation. The European Union even said it would withhold a €2 million grant to the Biennale amid the row. Giuli himself called for the resignation of a Biennale board member in response.
But the Biennale held firm, claiming it did not have the right to remove Russia from the exhibition because the country is recognized as a state in Italy. Moreover, the Biennale said, any permanent pavilion in the Giardini need only notify the Biennale of its intention to participate to be included in the official program. Russia’s pavilion ended up going on view, though not without protests: Pussy Riot and FEMEN led a highly publicized demonstration in front of the structure.
Prior to the Biennale’s opening, the exhibition’s jury said any nations charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court would not be considered for the Golden Lions. The move would have impacted Israel and Russia. But about a week after the jury’s statement, all of its five members resigned, without an explanation.
Giuli, who did not address the Israeli Pavilion in his interview, described Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco as “apolitical, as I was too. A highly capable apolitical, as [Italian Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni said, but in the end he did a favor to a belligerent state like Russia.”
The interview was published on May 7. Four days later, on Monday, Giuli reportedly fired two senior aides amid continued controversy over his ministry’s refusal to fund a documentary on Italian student Giulio Regeni, who was killed in Cairo in 2016. Italy blamed Egypt for Regeni’s killing. Giuli said it was “unacceptable” that his ministry would not disburse money for the documentary.
