Pussy Riot crash Russia's party at the Venice Art Biennale

VeniceThe 61st Venice Art Biennale continues with fury. This Wednesday protests against the presence of Russia and Israel have been more forceful. As they had warned, more than 50 people linked to the Pussy Riot activists, with their faces covered by pink balaclavas, have occupied the Russian pavilion, along with a multitude of members of the Femen collective. The Italian police have been forced to close the pavilion while agents and security guards subdued the activists who had managed to enter. Outside, the tension continued: the protesters sang the song Desobedece amidst a cloud of pink smoke and the Femen members advanced shouting slogans amidst a blue and yellow cloud, the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

In a statement, one of Pussy Riot's founders, Nadya Tolokonnikova, railed against the European Union: "Russia's best citizens are either jailed for actions against the regime and in favor of Ukraine, or they die in prison, while Europe opens its doors to Putin's officials and propagandists. If art is to represent a country at the Venice Biennale, a kind of Olympics of the art world, then artists jailed for their anti-war and pro-Ukraine stance are the true face of contemporary Russia." She also addressed the president of the Biennale. "While Pietrangelo Buttafuoco welcomes his Russian guests with champagne, drones and ballistic missiles are falling in Ukraine, and thousands of prisoners of war and political prisoners sit in cold cells. Their lives are not an abstraction; their lives deserve to be taken into account," the statement also says.

To reverse this situation, Pussy Riot makes a proposal: "If art is to truly overcome censorship, we propose a plan for jailed artists, current and former, to represent Russia at the 2028 Venice Biennale. All we need is for the Russian pavilion to be taken out of the hands of illegal terrorists who are currently waging the largest war in Europe since World War II and be handed over to those who have spent years in the gulags of this oppressive regime and who explicitly support Ukraine's sovereignty." In the same statement, Inna Shevchenko of Femen is equally blunt: "Every Russian artwork exhibited this year stands on an invisible pedestal: Ukrainian blood. You won't find it in the catalog. But it is the only material that truly supports this pavilion."

The Russian response came very quickly: they mocked the protest by posting a video on Instagram showing a group of people dancing inside the pavilion, including two men in pink balaclavas, while the demonstration continued outside.

Regarding the Ukrainian representation, the most visible is the Origami Deer sculpture, with the directors of the different areas of the Venice Biennale.Biennale of the Word - Dissent and Peace, with the directors of the different areas of the Venice Biennale.

Actions against Israel

Hours later, another demonstration of about a hundred people took place in front of the Israeli pavilion, organized by the collective Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA). The protesters carried a banner with the slogan "No toartwashing of genocide", they read manifestos and distributed leaflets with information related to the Palestinian humanitarian crisis caused by the war, which stated: "Can you tolerate it? No to the genocide pavilion". The pavilion's officials were forced to close for a few hours at midday. "There was a demonstration and the protesters are still in the premises; we closed to feel safe," said one of these officials.