Venice Biennale Foundation President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco said Wednesday that the only thing the event will not allow is “preventative exclusion” amid a huge row over the reopening of the Russian pavilion at the lagoon city’s 61st art exhibition.
“We don’t intend to barter away 30 years of history that have always described the world in this way,” Pietrangelo Buttafuoco said to applause at a press conference at the Piccolo Arsenale theatre, with the exhibition opening to press previews on Wednesday before opening to the public on Saturday.
“This Biennale doesn’t want to resolve, but to show, to open up questions.
“The only veto here is against preventative exclusion.
“I’m concerned about censorship in advance, declarations that rain down from everywhere, building a verdict before the debate.
“The Biennale is not a court.

It’s a garden of peace.
“We ask the institutions for dialogue, not papers to be passed around.
“Let’s try to look at the moon together.” Buttafuoco said the Biennale was taking inspiration from Italian President Sergio Mattarella’s call for artists to “move forward, be bold, develop your projects freely”.
The decision to allow Russia to reopen its pavilion at the 2026 International Art Exhibition is highly controversial.
The European Commission has condemned the move, saying it was a possible breach of European sanctions on Moscow related to the invasion of Ukraine and that it put two million euros of funding at risk.
Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli has also called for a rethink of the decision to allow the Russians to reopen the pavilion, albeit not to the public, and is not attending the inauguration.
It will be possible to see the Russian exhibit — “the tree is rooted in the sky” — from outside through the building’s windows and musical performances for it will be recorded during press previews this week and screened outside the pavilion over the next six months.
Last week the culture ministry sent inspectors to the Biennale to obtain information about the Russian-pavilion move and the exhibition’s international jury quit.
The jury had previously said it would exclude Russia and Israel from the competition for the Golden Lion and Silver Lion awards because the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for war crimes against their leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Russia has missed the last two Venice Biennale art exhibitions, following its 2022 invasion of its neighbour, and last took part in 2019.
Russia’s Ambassador to Italy, A.V.

Paramonov, inaugurated the Russian pavilion at the Biennale on Wednesday and, in a Facebook post, blasted the “EU’s obsession with persecuting Russian culture and art through sanctions and all manner of restrictions” as “truly morbid and irrational.
“It is deeply regrettable that the Italian leadership, as well as the Biennale’s management, have become the target of unacceptable and brutal diktats and pressure from the EU, whose faceless, grey bureaucrats have done everything in their power to lower the ‘Iron Curtain’ and prevent any exchange between EU countries and Russia,” he added.