Russia and Ukraine Pavilions at Venice Art Biennale 2022. Russia Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia – Photo by Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of the Russian Pavilion.
Ukraine war – “I can not go on working on our project following the military invasion and bombing of Ukraine by Russia. This war is politically and humanly intolerable.” Wrote Raimundas Malašauskas, curator of the Russian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Art Biennale opening on April 23. The curator and the artists Kirill Savchenkov and Alexandra Sukhareva resigned from their positions, thereby canceling the participation.
Russia Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia – Photo by Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of the Russian Pavilion.
Informed of such a decision, La Biennale di Venezia “expresses its complete solidarity for this noble act of courage and stands beside the motivations that have led to this decision, which dramatically epitomizes the tragedy that has beset the entire population of Ukraine.”
“The Ukrainian pavilion welcomes the decision of the Russian pavilion to close this year.” Wrote the Ukrainian curatorial team consisting of Paolo Makov, Lizaveta German, Maira Lanko and Borys Filonenko. “The Russian pavilion was built with the money of Bohdan Khanenko – a distinguished Ukrainian collector and philanthropist. […] This pavilion is just another piece of loud evidence of Russian cultural appropriation.” Added the team.
Russia Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia – Photo via IG by @pavilion.rus.
Venice Biennale announced it is collaborating and will collaborate in every way with the National Participation of Ukraine to ensure the presence of the artist and his team with his work. “Despite the ongoing war, we managed to evacuate fragments of the artwork from Kyiv, which is being heavily shelled and plans to recreate the rest of the project in Venice.” Announced the Ukraine pavilion.
Image via IG by @brz3z, courtesy of @ukrainianpavilioninvenice.
Titled The Shadow of Dream, the pavilion imagines the largest cargo aircraft, the Antonov An-225 Mriya flying over Venice and casting a fleeting shadow over the Biennale’s Giardini. The plane, which the Russian army has recently destroyed, carries information about all Ukrainian artists, a digital directory that consists of living dreams, present or past, explicit or obscure, verbalised or even unconscious.
Ukraine Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2022 – Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.
Venice Biennale stated that it “remains a place where peoples meet in art and culture and condemns all those who use violence to prevent dialogue and peace.” The world’s most influential art and architecture event “is also close to all those in Russia who are courageously protesting against the war. We will not shut its doors to those who defend freedom of expression and demonstrate against the despicable and unacceptable decision to attack a sovereign state and its defenceless people.”
‘The Fountain of Exhaustion’ by Pavlo Makov, 1995. Photo via IG by @brz3z, courtesy of @ukrainianpavilioninvenice.
All photos and images: courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia, The Russian Pavilion and the Ukrainian Pavilion.
