Russia will host a pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, the world’s most important art event — the latest sign of the country’s will to end its pariah status in global cultural and sporting life amid the war in Ukraine.
A news release issued by the biennale’s organizers on Wednesday included Russia among the countries taking part in this year’s event. It will present a show called “The Tree Is Rooted in the Sky,” involving at least 38 artists and musicians, according to the release.
Russia’s biennale team did not immediately respond to an interview request, but Mikhail Shvydkoy, President Vladmir V. Putin’s special representative for international cultural cooperation, told ArtNews on Tuesday that the country’s participation in the biennale was “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.”
Although the biennale’s organizers never banned Russia, the country has not appeared since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Shortly after the war began, the two Russian artists who were scheduled to represent the country at that year’s edition withdrew, saying that there was “no place for art when civilians are dying under the fire of missiles, when citizens of Ukraine are hiding in shelters, when Russian protesters are getting silenced.”
Russia did not take part in the 2024 biennale either, instead lending its large pavilion, in a prime location in the Biennale Gardens, to Bolivia. During the event, which this year runs from May 9 to Nov. 22, countries host exhibitions in national pavilions alongside a large group show featuring artworks chosen by an independent curator.
A spokeswoman for the biennale declined an interview request. But the news release said that the event “rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art.”
Ukraine’s culture ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday, but Ksenia Malykh, one of the curators of Ukraine’s pavilion at this year’s biennale, said in a WhatsApp message that Russia’s return to Venice was the latest example of its use of art “as a weapon in the information war.”
Malykh said that Ukraine’s own biennale exhibition would include a deer sculpture that was removed from a public park in eastern Ukraine to prevent damage from the fighting. The exhibition is titled “Security Guarantees,” she added, partly in reference to Ukraine’s pleas for more help from other nations in the war.
Russia’s recent absence from Venice had added to a sense of the country’s international cultural isolation. In 2022, the Eurovision Song Contest kicked Russia out, and European museums suspended cooperation with partners in Moscow and St. Petersburg. But that has started to change over the past year, with Russian stars appearing at the Oscars and singing at major opera houses.
Last year, Russia also moved to restore its international reach by reviving a Cold War-era song contest to act as a rival to Eurovision, with competitors representing countries including China, India and South Africa.
International sporting bodies have also started to clear the path for Russia’s return. Athletes are competing under the Russian flag at the Winter Paralympics in Italy this month, and the International Olympic Committee plans to hold meetings in the coming months that could herald Russia’s return to the Olympics after a yearslong ban because of state-sanctioned doping.
Several senior Olympic Committee officials have openly talked of wanting Russia back in the fold, and Paulo Zampolli, President Trump’s special representative for global partnerships, last month told The New York Times: “I think sport is for all.”
FIFA, global soccer’s governing body, is also pushing for Russia’s return to events like the World Cup, which the country was barred from over the war in Ukraine. In February, Gianni Infantino, the organization’s president, told reporters that he was “against bans,” which he said “create more hatred.”
Russia’s presence at the Venice Biennale — in an exhibition that Shvydkoy said would feature musicians, poets and philosophers from Russia and other countries, including Argentina and Mali — will likely stir controversy.
Pussy Riot, the dissident Russian art collective, said in a news release that Moscow should “expect resistance” in Venice.
Alex Marshall is a Times reporter covering European culture. He is based in London.
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