PETITION: Against the Venice Biennale Jury’s Discriminatory Exclusion of Israel from Award Consideration

To: The Venice Biennale Foundation, President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, and the International Jury of the 61st Venice Biennale

We, the undersigned - artists, curators, cultural professionals, and citizens committed to the principles of artistic freedom and institutional integrity - strongly protest the decision announced on April 23, 2026 by the jury of the 61st Venice Biennale to exclude Israel from consideration for the Golden and Silver Lion awards.
The facts speak for themselves. The Biennale Foundation has publicly affirmed that it “rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of art” and confirmed the participation of all countries recognised by Italy - including Israel, Russia, and Iran. The jury’s unilateral decision directly contradicts the institution’s own stated principles.
This is discrimination against artists, not governments. The Israeli representative at this year’s Biennale, artist Belu-Simion Fainaru, is a cultural figure whose work has nothing to do with the decisions of any government. To deny him and his colleagues eligibility for awards based solely on their nationality constitutes direct discrimination on the basis of national origin - a principle incompatible with the values of any credible cultural institution.
The legal basis is arbitrary and selectively applied. The jury has grounded its decision in ICC arrest warrants against national leaders. Yet ICC jurisdiction is itself contested, unrecognised by many democratic states, and demonstrably inconsistently applied across conflicts worldwide. No equivalent exclusion has been applied to dozens of other countries whose governments stand credibly accused of grave violations of international law. The singling out of Israel - a liberal democracy and a longstanding Biennale participant -  exposes this decision as politically motivated, not principled.
Cultural spaces must remain free from political weaponisation. The Venice Biennale has, since 1895, served as a space for dialogue across borders, precisely because culture can reach where diplomacy cannot. When a jury takes it upon itself to override an institution’s foundational rules and transform an art prize into a geopolitical statement, it destroys that space. This sets a dangerous precedent: tomorrow, any jury may exclude any nation for any reason it deems politically expedient.

We call for:
 1. The immediate reversal of the jury’s exclusion of Israel - and Russia - from award eligibility, in keeping with the Biennale’s own institutional principles of non-exclusion.
 2. A formal response from Biennale leadership clarifying how such a unilateral jury decision was permitted to stand in contradiction to official Foundation policy.
 3. A commitment that future jury appointments will include safeguards against the politicisation of cultural award processes.
Art is not a tribunal. Artists are not their governments. A prize jury is not a court of international law.
We urge the Venice Biennale to honour its own principles and to protect what makes it irreplaceable: its openness.

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