European Commission recommends ending funding for Venice Biennale over Russian participation

The European Commission has officially recommended ending grant funding for the Venice Biennale over the opening of the Russian pavilion. The funding amounts to €2 million for the 2025-2028 period.

Source: Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, on X (Twitter)

Quote: "The Commission officially recommends the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) to terminate the €2 million grant to the Venice Biennale."

Details: Virkkunen said the decision was made after analysing the Venice Biennale's responses regarding the opening of the Russian pavilion.

Quote: "Culture in Europe – funded with taxpayers money – should promote and safeguard democratic values. These values are not respected in today's Russia."

Russia's participation in the 61st Venice Biennale

Russia will reopen its pavilion and take part in the Venice Biennale this year for the first time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

More than 50 young musicians, poets and philosophers from Russia and other countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Mali and Mexico, will be involved in the pavilion.

One of the themes of the exhibition, titled The Tree is Rooted in the Sky, is the idea that "politics exist within temporary dimensions, whereas cultures communicate in eternity".

The commissioner of the Russian project will be Anastasia Karneyeva, the daughter of Nikolai Volobuyev, a retired general and deputy director of the major defence corporation Rostec.

"This is further proof that Russian culture is not isolated and that attempts to 'cancel' it – undertaken for the past four years by Western political elites – have not succeeded," said Mikhail Shvydkoi, Russia's delegate for international cultural exchanges and the country's former culture minister, who supports the war in Ukraine and argues that culture exists outside politics.

The organisers said the event will feature five contemporary figures who "are very unpopular with their governments – the US, Israel, China, Russia and even the EU". There are also plans for a programme on Pavel Florensky, an Orthodox priest and philosopher who was executed during the Great Terror.

Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin has promoted Florensky as one of the thinkers who laid the foundations for the concept of the "Russian world". [The "Russian world" or "Russkyi Mir" is the general idea of the superiority of Russian Orthodoxy, culture, language, etc., widely promoted by pro-Kremlin figures – ed.]

Background:

• Earlier, the European Commission gave the president of the Venice Biennale 30 days to resolve the issue of the Russian pavilion's opening. Otherwise, the organisation could lose €2 million.
• Henna Virkkunen and Glenn Micallef, EU Commissioner for Culture, condemned the Biennale leadership's decision in a joint statement on 10 March.
• Ukraine has called on the organisers of the Venice Biennale to reconsider their decision on Russia's participation and to maintain the principled position demonstrated in 2022-24.
• The European Commission later warned it could suspend EU grant funding for the Venice Biennale if Russia is allowed to reopen its pavilion at this year's exhibition.
• The organisers of the Venice Biennale later said that no rules had been broken by allowing the Russian pavilion to reopen and insisted that the exhibition must remain a place of dialogue, openness and artistic freedom.
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called on Italy not to issue visas to Russian participants in the Venice Biennale 2026. Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine's Foreign Minister, reported this during a meeting with journalists in April.
• Finland also reacted to Russia's participation in the exhibition. Finland's political leadership has said it will not attend the Venice Biennale if the Russian pavilion is opened, although some public officials will still visit the exhibition to support Finnish art and culture.
• Latvian Culture Minister Agnese Lāce said she would boycott the opening of this year's Venice Biennale if Russia takes part in the event.
• Participants of the Venice Biennale appealed to the exhibition's president and leadership to exclude Russia, Israel and the United States from the event and protect the dignity of others. The statement was signed by 73 artists.
• Ukraine also called on organisers to reconsider the decision to allow Russia to return to the international art forum. PinchukArtCentre likewise appealed to organisers of the 61st Venice Biennale to deny Russia participation in the international contemporary art exhibition.
• On 6 May, at the opening of the Venice Biennale, the international FEMEN movement, an international radical feminist activist group founded in Ukraine, and the Russian movement Pussy Riot held a protest near the Russian pavilion against Russia's participation in the event.

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