Members Of European Parliament Call On EU To Pull Venice Biennale Funding Over Russian Participation The Art Newspaper International Art News And Events

(MENAFN- USA Art News) EU Lawmakers Urge Funding Freeze for Venice Biennale if Russia Returns With Pavilion Program

A growing political fight over Russia’s proposed return to the Venice Biennale is now focused on money. At least 34 members of the European Parliament have signed a letter calling on the European Union to suspend“all European Union funding to the Venice Biennale Foundation should Russia’s participation proceed,” according to a document obtained and published on March 26 by Politico. While the letter shows 34 signatories, Politico reported that 37 MEPs have signed.

The letter is addressed to EU president Ursula von der Leyen, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, and the foreign minister of the Republic of Cyprus, Constantinos Kombos. Its central argument is blunt:“under no circumstances should Russia, a state subject to extensive European Union sanctions on trade, goods and services, be permitted to participate in an event financed by European taxpayers’ money.” The lawmakers add that“the Russian pavilion must likewise not be used for any activities organised by Russia, whether in physical or digital form.”

The signatories frame the issue as a test of the EU’s credibility amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. In the letter’s closing lines, they warn that Russia’s presence in Venice would weaken the union’s stance and amount to a betrayal of Ukraine.“Every day that Russia’s pavilion remains on the programme of the Venice Biennale is a day the European Union’s credibility is weakened,” they write.“Every euro of EU funding that flows to an institution hosting that pavilion is a contradiction in terms.”

The pressure campaign follows a recent announcement by Mikhail Shvydkoy, Vladimir Putin’s international cultural envoy, that the Russian pavilion intends to present a program weighted toward folk and world music. If it goes forward, it would mark Russia’s first participation in the Venice Biennale since the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Plans for the pavilion have been described as a musical festival staged outside the landmark structure in the Giardini ahead of the Biennale’s official opening, with the event later shown as a projection inside the pavilion for the duration of the exhibition. The project is titled“The tree is rooted in the sky.”

Opposition has been building across Europe’s cultural and political leadership. The Russian pavilion announcement prompted a letter signed by 22 European culture ministers, as well as a statement from EU commissioners Henna Virkkunen and Glenn Micallef, who warned that the EU’s grant to the Biennale could be suspended. The Financial Times has reported that the grant totals €2m.

The debate has also sharpened in the wake of events in Ukraine. On March 24, after Russia targeted the Unesco-protected center of Lviv in western Ukraine in a massive drone strike, Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha called on Biennale organizers to acknowledge“the ugly face of barbaric Russia.”

Meanwhile, the dissident art collective Pussy Riot has said it will protest the Russian pavilion. In an interview published by Meduza, a Russian-language news site based in Riga, Latvia, Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova described plans for what she called“a protest action with an artistic component,” adding that“several major collectors, curators and artists from other pavilions” want“to participate in our action.” She compared the planned demonstration to Pussy Riot’s protests during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

With EU funding now explicitly on the table, the Venice Biennale’s role as a global cultural stage is colliding with the realities of sanctions policy, public financing, and the symbolic weight of national pavilions. The question facing European officials is no longer only whether Russia should appear on the program, but whether European taxpayers should underwrite an institution that hosts it.

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