Belu-Simion Fainaru, Representing Israel at the Venice Biennale, Responds to Calls for Country to Be Ejected from Event
8April 6, 2026
Belu-Simion Fainaru, the artist set to represent Israel at the Sixty-FirstVenice Biennale, has issued a reply to the participating artists and curators demanding the country’s exclusion over its sustained bombing of Gaza.
“As an artist, I do not support cultural boycotts,” Fainaru toldArtnewsin a statement. “I believe in dialogue and exchange, especially in challenging times. Art thrives on openness, and any narrowing of that space diminishes it. Embracing diverse perspectives enriches the discourse around art and society, and for this reason my commitment to dialogue has deepened in recent years.”
The Romanian-born Israeli sculptor plans to present an installation titled Rose of Nothingness, an inky reflective pool. He said that the work is intended to remind viewers that “life, like art, is not created by accumulation or excess, but by listening to what is absent, to what is still becoming.” Related Trump’s Desire to Control the Smithsonian Institution Extends to Its Board Members Reina Sofía’s Refusal to Loan Picasso’s Guernica Opens Old Political Wounds in Spain
Hundreds of artists, curators, and cultural workers have been pressing for Israel to be ousted from the event over what Human Rights Watch has cast as the country’s “acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in Gaza.” Many have expanded that call to include “current regimes committing war crimes,” among them Russia and the US.
To date, Biennale officials have not responded to the mounting pressure in recent weeks. The event’s last public comment on the matter came in March, when it released a statement accompanying its announcement naming participating artists, saying that the Biennale “rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art” and that it, “like the city of Venice, continues to be a place of dialogue, openness, and artistic freedom, encouraging connections between peoples and cultures, with enduring hope for the cessation of conflicts and suffering.”