Israel’s message to the world: the closure of the pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale

2024-04-16 14:21:37

Opinion on the Venice Art Biennale

Israel’s message to the world: the closure of the pavilion

Status: 17.04.2024 | Reading time: 3 minutes

Israel Pavilion; WELT author Woeller

Credit: mauritius images/Riccardo Bianchini/Alamy; Claudius Plow

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A few weeks ago, the call to exclude Israel from the Venice Art Biennale caused outrage. Now the country pavilion is actually deserted, the military is protecting the building. What this process is all about – and how the art scene’s attitude fits into it.

It’s almost as usual on the opening days of the Venice Art Biennale: journalists, curators and artists will once again flock to the Giardini in Venice on April 16, 2024, curious to see what the individual countries have in store in their pavilions this year. It is the sixtieth since the International Art Exhibition was founded in the late 19th century. But in 2024 the mood has changed. Long gone are the years when the Biennale self-consciously celebrated capitalism with Roman Abramowitsch yachts on the quay. Now she celebrates the Global South – and at first glance she does it in a very folkloristic way. Visitors in traditional costumes cross the path. Long queues form in front of almost all of the national pavilions that have been set up in Venice’s city park over the past few decades. But a second look shows how great the effects of the current wars and crises in the world are here too.

A crowd of people has formed in front of the Israeli pavilion, which is repeatedly broken up by Italian soldiers and reforms. No, it’s not a performance. The modernist building is closed – and will remain closed. No artist, no curator, no art can be seen. The place must be protected by the military. There is a poster hanging on the window with what all this means written on it: “The artist and the curators of the Israel Pavilion will only open the exhibition once an agreement on a ceasefire and the release of the hostages has been reached.”

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Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 was more than half a year ago. The war in the Palestinian Gaza Strip has left tens of thousands dead. The terrorist Hamas has not yet been destroyed. There are still more than a hundred Israeli hostages in their hands, and it is unclear how many are still alive.

“Queer freedom” instead of context

Is this the consequence of a demand made by an activist group in an open letter a few weeks ago? In the letter, the group called the Art Not Genocide Alliance called for a boycott of Israel’s pavilion and for the country to be excluded from the international art community. The management of the Biennale resolutely opposed the call for a boycott. However, on the website of the Israeli artist Ruth Patir, who was supposed to exhibit here, you learn that the decision should not be understood as cancel culture against itself. But she wanted to express her solidarity with the hostages and their relatives, who have been waiting for their release since October 7th and are trying not to give up hope. A solidarity that is rarely felt in the international art scene – exhibition concepts and debates are sometimes characterized by an aggressive one-sidedness.

This becomes apparent after just a few meters in the central exhibition of the art biennale, which opens next weekend under the title “Foreigners Everywhere” and which the expert audience was able to visit in advance. In the second room of the Arsenale, visitors are greeted by a monumental painting. Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, born in Mexico City and trained as an artist at the Hamburg University, shows a mural reminiscent of Diego Rivera’s murals. It shows a huge machine, views of the Garden of Paradise and anti-Israel folklore: “Viva Palestine, Viva Viva” reads an inscription. And on the back “Hearts Against Genocide.” Not a word about the connections in the text to convey the work of art; the artist is simply praised for her “queer freedom” and “feminist utopian fantasies”.