The Venice Biennale is one of the most prestigious international exhibitions of art, and winning a prize at the Biennale gives an artist an enormous boost to his career. This year, however, the judges at the Biennale have announced that they will not be considering any Israelis for a prize, no matter what the quality of those artists’ submissions might be. More on the latest display of anti-Israel animus can be found here: “Israel Condemns Venice Biennale Jury Decision to Ban Israeli Artist From Winning Top Awards,” by Shiryn Ghermezian, Algemeiner, April 28, 2026:
Israel’s Foreign Ministry has denounced the International Jury of the 61st Venice Biennale after its five members announced last week that they will not consider awarding top prizes to an artist from Israel.
In a released statement, the Venice Biennale’s jurors said they will exclude from consideration for the Golden and Silver Lion awards artists from “those countries whose leaders are currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC),” which applies to both Israel and Russia in relation to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, respectively.
Belu-Simion Fainaru is the artist representing Israel at the Venice Biennale this year with his installation “Rose of Nothingness.” Fainaru’s artwork will address topics such as Jewish mysticism, memory, and poetry. The artist – who was born in Bucharest, Romania, and now resides in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa — won the Israel Prize in Design and Interdisciplinary Art last year. A University of Haifa alumnus, he represented Romania at the 2019 Venice Biennale.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a post on X that the jury’s decision to “boycott” Fainaru is “a contamination of the art world.”
“The political jury has transformed the Biennale from an open artistic space of free, boundless ideas into a spectacle of false, anti-Israeli political indoctrination,” the ministry added.
Fainaru believes that the jury’s decision has “created a hostile and degrading environment” and that he is being discriminated against based on his national origin, he said in an email last week cited by Artnet….
Of course he is being discriminated against. No two ways about it: he’s Israeli, no Israeli will be awarded a prize, as a fitting way to punish the colonial-settler, apartheid, genocidal Jewish state. Also sprach the five-man jury.
This year’s Venice Biennale will be open to the public from May 9-Nov. 22, and the awards ceremony will take place in Venice on May 9. The Golden Lion awards are given to the best artist in the main exhibition and to the best national pavilion, and the Silver Lion is awarded to a promising young artist. The winners will be selected among 110 participants….
This requires emendation. To wit: The Golden Lion awards are given to the best artist in the main exhibition unless that artist is an Israeli, and to the best national pavilion unless that pavilion belongs to Israel, and the Silver Lion is awarded to a promising young artist unless that promising young artist is an Israeli.
Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, Giovanna Zapperi, and Solange Farkas are the jurors for the Venice Biennale this year. Explaining their decision to exclude Israel and Russia from the event’s top prizes, the jury said they feel “a responsibility towards the historical role of the Biennale as a platform that connects art to the urgencies of its time.”…
Among the “urgencies of its time” that this Biennale will not address, but indeed add to, is the worldwide epidemic of antisemitism, that is intimately tied to the spread of the very anti-Israel animus that the judges at this Biennale display in such vivid fashion, by insisting that no Israeli artist will be considered for a prize.
Following the statement from the jury, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced that the bloc will withdraw $2.3 million in funding from the international art event for allowing Russia to participate. “While Russia bombs museums, destroys churches, and seeks to erase Ukrainian culture, it should not be allowed to exhibit its own,” Kallas said, as reported by Politico. “Russia’s return to the Venice Biennale is morally wrong, and the EU intends to cut its funding.”
Note that the judges are perfectly content to have Russian artists, but not Israelis, be eligible for prizes at this year’s Biennale. Is Israel, which has been fighting a six-front war for its very survival against terrorists of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and a terrorist state, a worse offender than Russia, that launched a war of aggression against an entirely innocent Ukraine, in order to seize territory that Putin wants to make part of Russia? It seems that the judges think so.
Here’s what I think should happen: American artists, gallerists, and art patrons, in protest at the Biennale’s decision, both stupid and cruel, to not consider Israeli artists for prizes, should simply refuse to take part in this year’s Biennale, including withdrawing any amounts the Americans had pledged to support the Biennale’s production. That will diminish the Biennale’s prestige, harm its finances, and limit the significance of its prizes.
40 rounds says
A flaming Nazi, communist, or islamist certainly would be eligible to win because these people are sick in the head
Bob Gold says
Yes. All conscientious artists should withdraw their exhibits. Their should be counter-expositions staged
Wellington says
The bitter irony here is that Venice and all of Italy would be far better off with Jews as allies rather than Muslims, and with Israel as an ally rather than any Muslim-majority nation (and yes, I realize that a temporary alliance with this or that Muslim nation might benefit Italy in the short run more so than with Israel but no Muslim nation could possibly benefit Italy in the long run better than Israel could and would).
ploome says
you write;
“The bitter irony here is that Venice and all of Italy would be far better off with Jews as allies rather than Muslims,”
and as we, the USA has discovered, better allies than the UK or EU
….it must be shocking to begin to understand the never ending, irrational hatred for Jews, often very skillfully disguised
anyone have any ideas why?
Wellington says
The reasons for antisemitism are complex and of long standing. Though the West developed, easily, the freest societies on Earth, it still from the ending of the ancient world onwards developed an animus towards Jews because they were essentially the only people in the West who refused to accept Christian doctrine, hence the enmity.
Adding to this convoluted “situation” was that, precisely because Jews were denied access to so many professions, they did their best to advance at the few that were allowed them, one of which was all kinds of money matters and at which the Jews excelled as they have at almost all things when allowed to “perform” (well, maybe not so much in professional football here in the USA but I digress).
But precisely because the Jews were way above average in money management they were thereafter accused of being avaricious and manipulative et al.. And so it went and still goes, including a plethora of silly conspiracy theories which are never rooted in fact but only indicative of prejudice and other negatives.
One thing is for certain and it is this: Jews, like all peoples, have negatives but none of them rise to all the malicious “stuff” averred about them. Actually, it’s precisely because of their resourcefulness that this in and of itself has worked against them, an irony indeed.
Hope this helps. And for the record, I am not Jewish and so there was no “inside” argument I presented above due to any “Jewishness.” And I would close here by stating that the two best hopes of the world among nations are America and Israel. I know of no other nation which could replace either one of these as “better,” assuming one is knowledgeable and in ruthless pursuit of the truth, which for my money is the only defensible way to pursue truth.
The Mayor says
The large number of anti Semitic words, and, deeds, from Eurabians, has almost convinced me, that Jew hatred, is a Eurocentric genetic program.
ploome says
well, well, well…..
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/world-art-show-s-jury-resigns-before-opening/ar-AA226VsI
“One of the art world’s most prestigious competitions is without a prize jury less than two weeks from opening. As ANSA reports, global politics is the culprit in the predicament of the upcoming Venice Biennale in Italy.
The five-member international jury resigned amid controversy over its decision to bar artists from Israel and Russia from receiving awards.
The jury technically didn’t name those two countries, but it excluded artists from countries under investigation by the International Criminal Court, which amounted to the same thing, notes the New York Times.
https://biblehub.com/genesis/18-26.htm
the righteous in Sodom -Abraham says:
32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”
He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”
33 When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Delighted to hear that.
ploome says
but wait. I misunderstood.
the jury resigned because
https://www.timesofisrael.com/jury-of-italys-venice-biennale-resigns-after-demanding-israel-russia-be-excluded/
“Venice Biennale jury resigns after demanding, in vain, that Israel and Russia be excluded
The international jury of the upcoming Venice Biennale Art Exhibition resigned en masse on Thursday in a row over the organization’s decision to allow Israel and Russia to participate in this year’s event.”
somehistory says
And those who made this decision, are they ones who would excuse the recent claim by a cleric that approves giving young girls to muzzies and calling it “marriage”? or the ones who disallowed the inclusion of Jews in the recent Milan Liberation March?
“What fools those mortals be.”.
Siddi Nasrani says
Your quote, “What fools those mortals be.”. & will follow on with this quote,
” Professing themselves wise they became fools.”
Taffy says
Aside from being ludicrous for punishing an individual artist because the leaders of the artist’s country were indicted by the ICC, there is fairly solid evidence that Qatari money was paid to Muslim prosecutor Kahn to secure indictments against Netanyahu and Gallant.
Now the whole art exhibition and contest is tainted. These “judges” are supposed to be neutral and only judge each work on its own artistic merits. Hugh’s solution is excellent, but it will be difficult to get galleries and those whose livelihood depends on the show/exhibition to boycott it. The only good thing to come of this is it brought the Israeli artist’s name to public attention.
Westman says
What kind of logic supports saying to an artist that you are excluded from our art show because we don’t like a goverment that you do not control nor can influence?
Sounds like one of my daughter’s elementary school friends who said about an additional new friend, “You can’t be friends with me if you’re going to be friends with her!”
I guess art promoters never grow up….
STJOHNOFGRAFTON says
Oi vay! Are those Venetians blind? It’s booby prizes for them at the israel biennale already.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Very funny, Sinjin of Grafton..
And a Venetian blind, when singular and in French, is “la jalousie.” So perhaps those judges were jealous of the achievements of the Israeii artists whom they had hoped to exclude from prizes.
Rarely says
Hugh.
It seems to be in vogue to do whatever can be done to isolate and denounce Israel. Pressure to do so is so wide spread it is very scary and is doubtlessly based in anti-Semitism.
Certainly islamic based anti-Semitism got the ball rolling but it found fertile ground in the latent anti-Semitism lurking under the radar in Western and eastern European societies. Islamic anti-Semitism is easier understood, being based on the koran but the European-style doesn’t make any sense at all.
tgusa says
Not a good look Italy considering that back in the day you allied with the nazis. The battle took Americans and their friends from July 1943 to May 1945 when Italy finally surrendered. Italy should keep that in mind and this time do better.
jerry glenn says
Italy surges in the European Islamopandering derby.
Brenrod says
Trump djstancing USA from Europe makes more sense daily. The road they are on will only get worse. He sees that they will continue to be lousy allies with nothing in common soon.
Ralph says
I find myself laughing at the thought of the Judges of the Venice Biennale having simultaneous heart attacks and arriving at the Emergency Room to be greeted by doctors wearing a Star of David…
Rufolino says
And when they see the Stars of David at the hospital, many will breathe “Thank goodness !”