La Biennale di Venezia on the Ukrainian Pavilion and on the participation of Russian artists

La Biennale di Venezia announces that it is collaborating and will collaborate in every way with the National Participation of Ukraine in the 59^th International Art Exhibition (23 April – 27 November 2022) to ensure the presence of the artist and his team with his work, which he is strongly committed to complete despite the tragic situation in Ukraine.

La Biennale di Venezia intends thereby to manifest its full support to the Ukrainian people and to its artists, and express its firm condemnation of the unacceptable military aggression by Russia.

La Biennale is also close to all those in Russia who are courageously protesting against the war. Among them, artists and authors in every discipline, many of whom have been guests of La Biennale in the past. La Biennale di Venezia will not shut its doors to those who defend freedom of expression and demonstrate against the despicable and unacceptable decision to attack a sovereign state and its defenceless people. For those who oppose the current regime in Russia there will always be a place in the exhibitions of La Biennale, from Art to Architecture, and in its festivals, from Cinema to Dance, from Music to Theatre.

As long as this situation persists, La Biennale rejects any form of collaboration with those who on the contrary have carried out or supported such a grievous act of aggression, and will therefore not accept the presence at any of its events of official delegations, institutions or persons tied in any capacity to the Russian government.

La Biennale is following the events of the war as it unfolds in Ukraine with apprehension, in the hope that international diplomacy will quickly negotiate a mutually agreed solution that will put an end to the death and suffering of an entire people and restore full freedom of action and movement to the world of culture.