This letter was sent to the Venice Biennale on 2 October 2025.
If you are a participant in the 61st International Art Exhibition and would like to connect with us or other artists who refuse to share a platform with Israel, please email us at artnotgenocidealliance@proton.me
NO GENOCIDE PAVILION AT THE VENICE BIENNALE 2026
To the Venice Biennale,
As a result of the intense pressure of ANGA's 2024 boycott campaign, the state of Israel's permanent pavilion in the Giardini remains closed. After more than 700 days of genocide and 77 years of occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, the pavilion must remain closed.The Biennale should not offer a space to a state committing genocide.
We note that the Israeli Ministry of Culture recently published a call for artists and curators to participate as representatives of the Israeli Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition in 2026. We understand that this call follows dialogue with the Biennale who have provided the Zionist state with a new venue in the Arsenale.
ANGA condemns this complicit invitation. We demand that the Biennale withdraws any offer to platform a genocidal state. At a time when Israel continues to escalate its genocide with the destruction and ground invasion of Gaza City, following months of enforced famine, the Biennale should be ashamed to be in dialogue with the cultural representatives of the Israeli occupation.
On 16 September 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, found what Palestinians and their advocates have said all along—that “Israeli authorities have persisted and continued with their genocidal campaign in Gaza for almost two years now”. And that “The acts of Israeli political and military leaders are attributable to the State of Israel. The Commission therefore concluded that the State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish the perpetrators of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” The chair of the commission, Navi Pillay, concludes by stating, “The international community cannot stay silent on the genocidal campaign launched by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza. When clear signs and evidence of genocide emerge, the absence of action to stop it amounts to complicity.”
The Biennale must show that it is more than the cultural arm of Meloni’s criminal and complicit government, a government which—against international law—continues to arm Israel while blocking EU sanctions, refuses to recognise the State of Palestine, and ignores wider calls for an arms embargo.
At the opening of the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, more than 24,000 artists, curators and art workers signed ANGA's demand to exclude Israel from the Biennale and urged the Biennale to end its silence and complicity with the genocidal state—the largest petition to date in the cultural industry. Now, 18 months later, we reiterate the demand for the immediate and complete exclusion of Israel from the Venice Biennale.
If the Biennale fails to meet this basic demand, ANGA will initiate a campaign to bring a full artist and audience boycott of the 61st Venice Biennale. We will activate the power of over 24,000 international signatories and the tens of thousands who are joining ANGA’s campaign.
People around the world are mobilising in unprecedented numbers. Since 1 October, many boats in the Global Sumud Flotilla, the largest civilian-led maritime convoy in history, have been illegally seized and their crews kidnapped while heading towards Gaza to break the siege. Following attacks by Israel on the Flotilla on 22 September 2025, Italian grassroots unions called a 24-hour general strike under the slogan "Blocchiamo tutto" bringing docks and major Italian cities to a standstill. Another general strike has been announced for 3 October.
Artists, cultural workers and audiences will not allow the Zionist state’s presence in the cultural field to go unchallenged. If the Israeli pavillion is not excluded, ANGA will leverage the movement to ensure maximum reputational and economic consequences for the Biennale.
Our demand is simple: the immediate and complete exclusion of the state of Israel from the Venice Biennale.
The Biennale has until 15 October 2025 to respond to this demand.
ANGA is ready to escalate.
Signed,
ANGA - Art Not Genocide Alliance
ABOUT ANGA