100+ Artists Threaten Legal Action Over Inclusion in Biennale Awards

Over 100 participants have threatened legal action against the Venice Biennale Foundation, alleging that Biennale leadership has not honored their official withdrawal from the new “Visitor Lion” awards last month.

Determined by visitor votes, the new awards were hastily instituted after the Biennale's original award jury resigned en masse days before the event opened, and amid intensifying controversy over Israel and Russia's presence in the exhibition. The jury's resignation prompted dozens of exhibiting artists to withdraw from awards consideration in solidarity.

In a statement published on e-flux today, June 3, a group of 67 In Minor Keys artists and 39 national pavilion participants claimed that Biennale leadership has neither replied to nor acknowledged receipt of their May 20 letter asking to be removed from the voting ballots for the Visitor Lions. Despite first issuing their “explicit request” for collective withdrawal when the Biennale opened to the public on May 9, the signatories say they were still listed as eligible candidates when the Biennale distributed the digital ballots to visitors on May 14.

“We view this lack of responsiveness as not only highly disrespectful of the undersigned participants in the Biennale, but also of the audience,” today's statement reads. The statement said the signatories will “begin next steps towards legal action” starting today.

However, in a statement shared with Hyperallergic, the Biennale Foundation disputed the claim that it had not responded to the artists’ request, alleging that it had acknowledged receipt of the letter via email on May 28. In the provided email response, the Foundation stated that it had kept the withdrawn artists on the ballot to “guarantee all visitors their freedom of expression” when voting, but that “these votes will not be considered for the awards, nor will they be published.”

Hyperallergic has reached out to the signatories for comment.

In their most recent letter today, the artists specified that they were not against the public voting on the awards as a concept, but that “to create Visitors’ Lions Awards at this stage is a deflection from the jury's resignation and in direct contradiction to the process we all agreed to when we accepted the invitation to exhibit our work.”

Selected by the 61st Biennale's late curator Koyo Kouoh, the former women-led awards jury had announced their decision to omit “countries whose leaders are currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC)” from consideration on April 23, effectively disqualifying Israel and Russia from the Golden Lions. The move was a shift forward for the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) organizers, who have continuously pushed for the expulsion of Israel and Russia from the Biennale, and for the initial group of In Minor Keys artists, pavilion presenters, and cultural workers for the Biennale who are calling for Israel's exclusion.

Though the Biennale Foundation said that the jury's decision represented “a natural expression of the freedom and autonomy which La Biennale guarantees,” it was later revealed that Israeli pavilion artist Belu-Simion Fainaru had filed a legal warning against the Biennale. After the Biennale's legal department warned that the individual members could be personally liable for damages to Fainaru in the event of a dispute, the jury resigned en masse on April 30.

“Our withdrawal is a refusal to participate in a process in which the jury was left exposed to significant personal legal liability, when it was the responsibility of La Biennale to guarantee the independence and integrity of the jury’s deliberations,” the signatories stated in their May 20 letter to the Foundation.

The artists’ withdrawal from the Visitor Lions awards is part of ongoing protests against the inclusion of Russia and Israel in this year's Biennale. On May 8, the Biennale's final preview day, 27 of the 100 national pavilions were partially or fully shuttered and various In Minor Keys artists altered their displays in the central exhibition for a historic 24-hour cultural labor strike.

Alongside the closures, the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) staged a massive protest that marched toward the temporary Israeli pavilion in the Arsenale Complex, which had been preemptively barricaded off by Italian riot police.

The full list of signatories as of June 3 is below.

In Minor Keys Artists

Pio Abad

Fabric Aragno

arms ache avid aeon

Sammy Baloji

Éric Baudelaire

Sabian Baumann

Nancy Brooks Brody Estate

BuBu de la madeleine

Carolina Caycedo

Annalee Davis

Bonnie Devine

Nolan Oswald Dennis

rana elnemr

Joy Episalla

Rachel Fallon

Sofía Gallisá Muriente

Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige

Sohrab Hura

Mohammed Joha

fierce pussy

Alfredo Jaar

Michael Joo

Nina Katchadourian

Guadalupe Maravilla

Natalia Lassalle Morillo

Florence Lazar

Zoe Leonard

Alice Maher

lugar a dudas (Ericka Florez, Sahara Rosero, Marcela Muñoz,María del Mar Nuñez, Sally Mizrachi)

Avi Mograbi & Avital Barak

Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Otobong Nkanga

Hagar Ophir

Uriel Orlow

Thania Petersen

Alan Phelan

Walid Raad

Mohammed Z. Rahman

Tabita Rezaire

Guadalupe Rosales

Yo-E Ryou

Rose Salane

Carrie Schneider

Hala Schoukair

Berni Searle

Yoshiko Shimada

Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser

Cauleen Smith

Vera Tamari

Jo-ey Tang

Carrie Yamaoka

Raed Yassin

Laurie Anderson

Leonard Pongo

Theo Eshetu

Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka

Philip Aguirre

María Magdalena Campos-Pons

Kamaal Malak

Denniston Hill

Kemang Wa Lehulere

Buhlebezwe Siwani

Eustáquio Neves

Artists from National Pavilions

Belgium
Miet Warlop, Artist & Caroline Dumalin, Curator & Team

Luxembourg
Aline Bouvy & Stilbé Schroeder

France
Yto Barrada

Slovenia
Nonument Group (Neja Tomšič, Martin Bricelj Baraga, Nika Grabar, Miloš Kosec)
Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, curator

Latvia
MAREUNROL’S, Bruno Birmanis & Team

Lithuania
Egle Budvytyte, Artist and Louise O’Kelly, Curator & Team

Switzerland
Gianmaria Andreetta, Luca Beeler, Miriam Laura Leonardi, Lithic Alliance, Yul Tomatala, Nina Wakeford

Spain
Artist: Oriol Vilanova
Curator: Carles Guerra & team

The Netherlands
Dries Verhoeven, Artist & Rieke Vos, Curator

Poland
Bogna Burska & Daniel Kotowski, artists
Ewa Chomicka & Jolanta Woszczenko, curators

Portugal
Alexandre Estrela, Artist, Ana Baliza, Curator

Ecuador
Tawna Collective (Sani Montahuano, Mukutsawa Montahuano, Lucia Ferre, Enoc Merino, Boloh Miranda & Tatiana Lopez)

Ireland
Isabel Nolan, Artist; Georgina Jackson, Curator; Cian O’Brien, Producer

Kosovo
Brilant Milazimi

Finland
Juha Huuskonen, Commissioner
Jenna Sutela, Artist
Curator and Team

Czech and Slovak Pavilion
Artists: Jakub Jansa, Selmeci Kocka Jusko
Curator: Peter Sit

Cyprus
Marina Xenofontos

Albania
Genti Korini

United Arab Emirates
Farah Al Qasimi

Türkiye
Artist: Nilbar Güreş
Curator: Başak Doğa Temür

Grenada
Group Show
Commissioner, Susan Mains

Iceland
Artist: Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir
Commissioner, Cecilie Gaihede, Icelandic Art Center

Moldova
Artist: Pavel Brăila
Curator: Adelina Luft

Estonia
Artist: Merike Estna
Curator: Natalia Sielewicz & team

Ukraine
Artist: Zhanna Kadyrova
Curators: Ksenia Malykh, Leonid Marushchak & curators of public programme: Katia Khimei, Ivanna Kozachenko

Croatia
Artist: Dubravka Lošić
Curator: Branko Franceschi
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture and Media

Italy
Chiara Camoni & studio team

Austria
Florentina Holzinger, Artist & Team

San Marino
Mark Francis

Nordic Countries
Benjamin Orlow, Klara Kristalova, Tori Wrånes (artists)
Anna Mustonen (curator) & Team

Denmark
Maja Malou Lyse, DIS, Chus Martínez, Commons Accounts

Britain
Lubaina Himid

Chile
Norton Maza

Bulgaria
Martina Yordanova (curator) and artists Veneta Androva, Gery Georgieva, Maria Nalbantova, Rayna Teneva and the whole team

Philippines
Artist: Jon Cuyson
Curator: Mara Gladstone

Romania
Artists: Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán
Curators: Corina Oprea, Diana Marincu & Team

Mexico
RojoNegro (Noé Martínez y María Sosa)

Malta
Artists: Raphael Vella, Charlie Cauchi, Adrian Abela
Curator: Margerita Pulè

Aotearoa New Zealand
Fiona Pardington & Team

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