Pussy Riot targets pavilion
- Activist collective Pussy Riot is attempting to occupy Russia’s Venice pavilion with an exhibition about political prisoners. - Their bid would repurpose pavilion space to show art by detained and persecuted artists. - The proposal is being framed as direct counter‑programming to Russia’s return and has drawn international art‑world attention (news.artnet.com)
Pussy Riot is trying to replace Russia’s Venice Biennale pavilion with a show built from art made by political prisoners in Russian jails. (news.artnet.com) The collective’s proposed exhibition, “Resistance Imprisoned,” opened in Strasbourg on April 19 and runs through May 31, overlapping with the Biennale’s May 6-8 preview and May 9 public opening. (news.artnet.com) (labiennale.org) Artnet reported that the show includes work by nearly 30 artists still imprisoned in Russia, plus three former prisoners and jeweler Alexander Dotsenko, who recently died in custody. The works were gathered by Art Action, a support organization founded by Nadya Tolokonnikova and John Caldwell. (news.artnet.com) The fight centers on Russia’s official return to the Biennale after sitting out the 2022 and 2024 editions following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia’s pavilion is due to reopen in May 2026 as part of the 61st International Art Exhibition. (artnews.com) (labiennale.org) Russia’s state-backed project is titled “The Tree Is Rooted in the Sky” and, according to The Art Newspaper, will involve a three-day festival from May 5 to May 8 that is then filmed and shown in the pavilion. Mikhail Shvydkoy, Russia’s envoy for international cultural exchanges, said the program would feature “multilingual polyphony” and more than 50 young musicians, poets, and philosophers from Russia and other countries. (theartnewspaper.com) (artnews.com) Biennale organizers have said they do not choose which recognized countries participate if those countries own a pavilion in the Giardini. The Biennale said it “rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art” and described Venice as a place of dialogue and artistic freedom. (theartnewspaper.com) That position has met organized opposition inside the art world and from officials backing Ukraine. An open letter against Russia’s pavilion drew more than 6,000 signatories by March 10, and Artists at Risk said the European Union’s executive arm was weighing whether to suspend or terminate a grant to the Biennale Foundation over Russia’s inclusion. (artistsatrisk.org) (rferl.org) Pussy Riot has argued that the pavilion should show the people being punished by the Russian state, not a state cultural program. Tolokonnikova told Artnet the alternative exhibition would document a country “once again turning into a gulag.” (news.artnet.com) The immediate question is whether the Giardini’s Russian pavilion opens in May with Moscow’s program, or whether pressure from artists, activists, and funders forces another change before visitors arrive in Venice. (labiennale.org) (news.artnet.com)
