r/VeniceContemporaryArt

The European Education and Culture Executive Agency has confirmed, via a letter to the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, the suspension of a 2 million euro grant allocated for the 61st Art Biennale. The reason cited is Russia's participation.

 Three days earlier, the European Commission had notified the Biennale of the possible revocation of funding designated for cinematographic activities for the 2025–2028 triennium, giving the Venetian institution 30 days to present its position.

The response came swiftly. The Biennale, chaired by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, stated that it had followed the rules of national and international law, reaffirming its refusal to be subject to logics of cultural exclusion.

EU Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier fired back: "Cultural events funded with European taxpayers' money should safeguard democratic values, promote open dialogue, diversity and freedom of expression — values that are not being upheld in today's Russia."

 Credits to:

https://www.artribune.com/professioni-e-professionisti/politica-e-pubblica-amministrazione/2026/04/ue-sospesa-sovvenzione-2-milioni-biennale-arte-russia/

https://www.exibart.com/attualita/padiglione-russia-alla-biennale-darte-sanzioni-ucraine-e-fondi-ue-a-rischio/

 

President Volodymyr Zelensky imposed sanctions on five Russian cultural figures linked to Moscow's participation in the Venice Biennale, according to a decree published on Friday, April 10th. Those sanctioned are Anastasia Karneeva, commissioner of the Russian pavilion; Mikhail Shvydkoy, Russia's representative for international cultural exchanges and former Minister of Culture; and artists Artem Nikolaev, Ilya Tatakov, and Valeria Oleinik.

The announcement was made by Culture Minister Tetyana Berezhna, who stated that the individuals "are directly involved in promoting state-backed cultural projects linked to propaganda, the military-industrial complex, and the normalization of war crimes." The measures include asset freezes, a ban on entry into Ukraine, and the suspension of all forms of cultural cooperation.

Ukrainian officials said Russia's participation in international cultural events is being used to legitimize its aggression and spread propaganda narratives. "The Venice Biennale is one of the world's most authoritative art platforms, and it must not become a stage for whitewashing the war crimes that Russia commits daily against the Ukrainian people and our cultural heritage," said Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha and Culture Minister Tetyana Berezhna in a joint statement over the weekend.

Credits to: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/73656

https://www.exibart.com/attualita/padiglione-russia-alla-biennale-darte-sanzioni-ucraine-e-fondi-ue-a-rischio/ 

https://www.huffingtonpost.it/politica/2026/04/11/news/lue_avverte_la_biennale_stop_ai_russi_o_niente_fondi_sanzioni_da_zelensky-21663026/

On March 30th, United States President Donald Trump and his son Eric published a video on social media generated by artificial intelligence, showcasing what is meant to be the grandiose "Donald J. Trump Presidential Library," planned to be built in Miami, Florida, along the city's waterfront.

The rendering released to the public depicts a 47-story building (a number referencing the 47th President of the United States) which will include models of Air Force One and several military aircraft, a six-meter golden statue of Trump, and a replica of the Oval Office. In December, a description had emerged suggesting the complex would also feature a hotel, a rooftop restaurant, and offices, with a total cost of approximately one billion dollars to be raised through donations.

The president's son, Eric Trump, stated in a post that he had "dedicated his heart and soul to this project" over the past six months alongside the team at architecture firm Bermello Ajamil & Partners.

However, the unveiling of the future library has sparked a wave of criticism, given that the video contains absolutely no trace of any books.

 

Credits to: https://euroborsa.it/trump-biblioteca-presidenziale-statua.aspx

https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2026/04/03/video/ecco_come_sara_la_faraonica_biblioteca_di_trump_a_miami_aerei_statue_oro_ma_niente_libri-425262861/

https://www.ilgiornaledellarte.com/Articolo/Sorgera-a-Miami-la-biblioteca-presidenziale-intitolata-a-Donald-Trump-di-piani

Andrea Venanzoni, a jurist and guest at the lecture on the Antichrist, offers his interpretation of Thiel's words, while respecting the strict secrecy that was required. The central topic of the meeting, the figure of the Antichrist, would be defined, conceptually, as a political dimension. It would not be identifiable in a single person, such as Greta Thunberg, environmentalists, defenders of minority rights, or woke culture, as these can only be manifestations of a broader phenomenon.

For Thiel, the Antichrist is stagnation, the end of humanity's drive toward self-improvement. A loss of faith has left the West vulnerable. Thiel's crusade against environmentalism, internationalist pacifism, anti-scientific attitudes, legitimate concerns about Artificial Intelligence, and woke culture is therefore something more than mere adherence to the sovereignism and supremacism of MAGA culture, Thiel wants to restore the West's confidence in itself.

For this reason, a call to action is necessary: the use of "exceptional tools" to protect and make forms of government more efficient, starting with the American one. In fact, it is fair to say that he has already revolutionized the world we live in, from PayPal to LinkedIn, from Facebook to Palantir. His philosophy becomes practical substance. Thiel does not only speak. He builds.

Credits to: Vincenzo Profeta

https://www.milanofinanza.it/news/ho-seguito-le-lezioni-romane-di-peter-thiel-sull-anticristo-e-vi-dico-che-parla-il-saggista-andrea-202603231410564939

https://www.corriere.it/il-punto/la-rassegna/26_marzo_26/l-anticristo-secondo-thiel-la-violenza-online-l-aria-che-tira-in-italia-cos-e-l-antisemitismo.shtml

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/peter-thiel-lectures-antichrist

After the sculpture "King of the World", depicting President Trump and financier Jeffrey Epstein in the iconic Titanic scene, the anonymous collective Secret Handshake strikes again, this time in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. In front of one of the most symbolic landmarks in the United States, a gleaming three-meter-tall golden toilet has appeared, fully functional and open to the public, titled "A Throne Fit for a King."

The obvious and inevitable precedent is Cattelan's golden toilet titled "America", which became a symbol of provocative and satirical art and was already linked, in various ways, to the President of the United States. This more recent work also references Trump's decision to renovate the bathroom adjoining the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House: out with the green tiles, in with marble and golden details, an aesthetic of ostentatious luxury that had already fueled mockery and controversy. In other words, the artwork translates an architectural choice into a political and artistic symbol. The plaque attached to the work states openly: "President Trump focused on what really mattered: renovating the Lincoln Bedroom bathroom at the White House."

Equally important is the context in which this installation was created. It is directly connected to the No Kings protests, a movement born in February 2025 that spread spontaneously across much of the Western world in opposition to Trump's authoritarian drift. Trump himself responded to last year's demonstrations with one of his so-called "slop videos," in which he bombarded No Kings Day protesters with feces. The golden toilet thus returns as a literal response following the most recent demonstration, which drew millions of people.

Credits to: https://www.exibart.com/arte-contemporanea/un-wc-dorato-davanti-al-lincoln-memorial-arte-pubblica-e-satira-politica-made-in-usa/ 

https://tg.la7.it/cultura-e-societa/wc-dorato-lincoln-memorial-trump-provocazione-31-03-2026-254883/amp

 

 

 

 

 

Starting in early 2026, the British Museum has reportedly been removing the terms "Palestine" and "Palestinian culture" from the information panels in its Middle Eastern galleries. Despite denials from the London institution, this revision process allegedly began following a request from the association UK Lawyers for Israel, which called on the museum's leadership to address terms it described as "historically inaccurate" that risked “obscuring the history of Israel and the Jewish people”.

The museum's apparent compliance, alongside the denials issued by director Nicholas Culligan, has been widely criticized by the public, with many accusing the institution of historical revisionism and the deliberate erasure of a culture. The new labels, presented as reflecting historical neutrality toward the geographical region, would replace "Palestine" with terms such as Canaan, the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, or Judea.

In response, more than 200 artists and cultural figures sent a signed open letter to the British Museum titled "Stop Erasing Palestine and Supporting Genocide." The statement calls on the museum to clarify its position by publicly acknowledging the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry's conclusion that Israel has committed war crimes and genocide in Gaza. The letter urges the museum to seize the opportunity to show solidarity with the Palestinian people by commissioning a professional investigation, led by a committee of historians, to determine the correct labeling of Palestinian historical artifacts.

 

Credits to:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/feb/16/british-museum-removes-word-palestine

 https://www.artribune.com/dal-mondo/2026/03/british-museum-elimina-palestina-lettera-protesta-artisti/

"The Venice Biennale's complicity with the attempted destruction of Palestinian life must end. No artist or cultural worker should be asked to share a platform with this genocidal state" states ANGA (Art Not Genocide Alliance) in a letter signed by 178 art world figures, including artists, curators, and other professionals. Some signed anonymously out of fear of repercussions.

The letter carries a clear message: exclude the State of Israel from the International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. In fact, after years of absence and despite the pavilion remaining empty, Israeli artists will still have a dedicated space for their work in 2026.

ANGA played a major role in 2024 organizing protests against Israel, framing it as an apartheid state and highlighting the fact that Palestine has no national pavilion and never has. The Biennale responded that it could not consider any petition calling for the exclusion of sovereign states. Regardless, the protests continue.

ANGA's statement also references historical precedents set by the Biennale itself, most notably the exclusion of apartheid South Africa between 1968 and 1993, to strengthen the case for their demand.

The letter comes at a moment of further escalation in the Middle East conflict, and adds to the controversy already surrounding the participation of the Russian Pavilion at the Biennale.

Credits to: https://www.exibart.com/attualita/178-artisti-della-biennale-di-venezia-2026-chiedono-esclusione-di-israele/

https://hyperallergic.com/nearly-200-venice-biennale-artists-demand-israels-exclusion/

Photo:A group of art workers, artists, and activists protested outside the Israeli and US pavilions at the 60th Venice Biennale on April 17, 2024. (photoAvedis Hadjian/Hyperallergic)

Cattelan's new project, Hotline, transforms the confessional into a customer service line: a free number “0800 060 8212” in the UK through which anyone can unburden their conscience. The confessions will be listened to by Cattelan himself, who will select the most significant ones to respond to personally and invite participants to a streaming event on April 23rd.

The project is completed by the launch of a limited edition of 666 miniatures of La Nona Ora, conveniently timed to Easter and the 21st anniversary of the death of John Paul II, on sale at 2,200 euros each. Access to the purchase will be granted through a lottery system, but those who participate in his hotline will secure early access to the buying list. The exchange Cattelan proposes is clear and almost brutal in its simplicity: your sin in exchange for priority access to the sale. Not an artistic ritual but a loyalty program. Not a sacrament but a newsletter subscription with a sculpture attached.

Bringing confession into this context means using dead tools to simulate contemporaneity. Cattelan listens, selects his clientele, and hands back a miniature of himself as an act of benevolence. This is no longer ready-made. It is ready-made as merchandise.

 

Credits to: Vincenzo Profeta

 https://profetalandia.substack.com/p/la-boomer-art-di-maurizio-cattelan?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=6607125&post_id=193265524&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=6ogdyv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

 

https://www.exibart.com/arte-contemporanea/pronto-maurizio-cattelan-ha-attivato-una-hotline-per-confessarsi/

 From Sunday the 15th to Wednesday the 18th of March, Peter Thiel is in Rome. We are talking about the co-founder of PayPal, early backer of Facebook, and founder of Palantir, the surveillance company used by U.S. defense and intelligence agencies. Officially, he is here to hold seminars on the Antichrist and the intersection of religion and Artificial Intelligence. The exact location is unknown: the sessions are invitation-only, held behind closed doors, with no phones allowed. Only a carefully selected group has access.
Rome is the latest stop on a tour that has already passed through San Francisco, London, and Paris. Behind these travels may lie something larger: the forging of an alliance between the new American authoritarian technocracy and European religious nationalism and far-right movements.
The seminars reportedly connect the biblical figure of the Antichrist to the crisis of modernity and contemporary anxieties: from nuclear war to climate change to the uncontrolled development of AI. For Thiel, the Antichrist is not merely a religious symbol but a political category. He would not appear as a tyrant, but as a leader who exploits fear of global catastrophe to impose an increasingly centralized order. In this framework, alarmism around climate and AI becomes a tool for limiting freedom and innovation. After all, that’s a coherent position for a man who famously wrote in his 2009 essay The Education of a Libertarian that "democracy is incompatible with freedom," a libertarian critique of liberal democracies as unbearable constraints on the free market.

The artwork attached is one of the most unsettling images in Western art, by Luca Signorelli — The Antichrist (1499–1502)

Painted in Orvieto Cathedral, the Antichrist looks exactly like Christ , Satan stands behind him, whispering every word and the crowd believes him without question

According to several European media reports, ministers from 22 European countries have urged the leadership of La Biennale di Venezia to reconsider Russia’s participation in the upcoming International Art Exhibition.

The argument is that allowing Russia to exhibit risks legitimizing a government engaged in war against Ukraine.

At the same time, this debate is unfolding while a new war has just erupted in the Middle East. Since late February 2026, the United States and Israel have carried out coordinated strikes on multiple targets in Iran, triggering a wider regional conflict and retaliation across the Middle East.

This raises a question about consistency in cultural politics.

The Venice Biennale has historically allowed countries to maintain national pavilions even during wars or military interventions. The United States and Israel have both exhibited in Venice throughout multiple conflicts, including controversial wars in the Middle East.

So if participation in cultural institutions becomes conditional on a country’s military actions, shouldn’t the same rule apply to everyone?

Should the Venice Biennale become part of geopolitical sanctions  or remain a space where artists from all countries are present even when governments are at war?

Curious to hear how people here see the relationship between art, politics and double standards.

Is Banksy playing with the media again?

Recently, an investigation reported by Reuters claims to have identified the person behind the most famous pseudonym in street art. The name is Robin Gunningham, a graffiti artist born in Bristol in 1973.

In reality, this theory has been circulating for years, and Banksy himself has never confirmed or denied it. Nevertheless, the issue raises an interesting question about the relationship between anonymity, myth, and value in contemporary art.

The secrecy surrounding his identity has probably been a key part of his success. The mystery turned each new work into an event: a sudden appearance, a political message, and a story that quickly went viral around the world.

Anonymity also helped build Banksy’s image as an artist operating outside the system and far from traditional art institutions. Yet this very myth has become part of his value on the art market. His works sell for millions at international auctions, as in the case of Love Is in the Bin, which partially self-destructed in 2018 just after being sold at auction by Sotheby's.

Do you think that if Banksy’s identity were definitively confirmed, it would also affect his market value or his cultural impact?

In recent days, a statue of Christopher Columbus has been erected in Washington D.C., outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House, on the initiative of the Trump administration.

This is the latest sign of the Trump administration's efforts to fight against woke culture, reshaping cultural and historical representations across the nation's capital and bringing back statues that were removed in the wake of protests. The statue is a replica of a monument originally erected in Baltimore in 1984 and torn down by protesters in 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that followed the killing of George Floyd. The original monument was retrieved from Baltimore Harbor and restored, partly funded by a public grant of 30,000 dollars.

Trump explicitly declared: "In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero", reigniting longstanding tensions over the meaning of monuments, their political use, and the deeply divisive figure of Columbus himself. For Italian-American communities, Columbus remains an emblem of integration and social redemption. For anti-racist movements and many Indigenous communities, he represents the symbol of a process of colonization and exploitation.

 

Credits to: https://www.exibart.com/attualita/trump-riporta-colombo-alla-casa-bianca-e-giuli-depone-la-corona-a-new-york/ 

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/22/politics/christopher-columbus-statue-white-house-grounds

Ever since graffiti became street art, it lost its rage, its subversive charge and, contrary to its new definition, its very nature as art. Hatred, which in our society is condemned and pushed aside, was in fact one of the forces that changes the world most profoundly, and graffiti writers were the people who best knew how to transform that feeling into a free and uncompromising artistic form.
Ever since graffiti became socially accepted and repurposed as a municipal tool for advertising and civic progress, it turned into murals and therefore into aesthetic drift. The chaos once captured on surfaces no longer exists; what remains are commissioned colors, bourgeois sensibility, and tolerant rhetoric whose highest ambition is media visibility and public funding.
Ever since everyone became a Banksy fan, the liberatory and subconscious impulses of this art form have become sterile vehicles for empty concepts, designed to be universally understood, a product of globalization and forced universalism.
So perhaps the scrawled attempts of teenagers with a spray can deserve to be called art more than any million-dollar wall painted by Banksy?

Author: Vincenzo Profeta
vincenzo_profeta_
https://ilnemico.it/b-r-ammazzate-banksy/ 

The appointment of Alexander Karp as CEO of Palantir in 2005 was Peter Thiel's decisive move to build what many consider the most important military technology machine in the world: Thiel provided the capital and the vision, Karp gave it a philosophical and moral justification. Palantir, named after the seeing stones of The Lord of the Rings, specializes in analyzing massive datasets for government agencies, militaries, and large corporations. In the myth, the palantíri allow their users to see distant events in time and space. Although in the books they are dangerous objects that can corrupt those who use them (as happened to Saruman) Karp adopted the term to describe his software's ability to make the invisible visible through predictive data.

Karp believes that the only way to prevent large-scale conflicts is to possess technology so advanced it intimidates adversaries, particularly authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China. The same obsession with surveillance is, in his view, the only method to control AI itself. The roots of Palantir's algorithms lie in the world of casinos and online fraud detection, drawing inspiration from PayPal's anti-fraud systems, of which Thiel is a co-founder. That same mathematical logic was transmuted into a tool for tracking terrorist movements and global criminal networks.

The latest demonstration of this power played out in the shadows of Caracas's narco-mafia underworld. In early 2026, a classified Pentagon operation led to the capture of Nicolás Maduro. The armed operation was guided by artificial intelligence: Anthropic's models, integrated into Palantir's platform, processed oceans of real-time data, coordinating the raid that removed the Venezuelan leader from his throne.

The theme of progress is an ancient one, reinterpreted in the world of art through "The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity", a charcoal drawing by Odilon Redon from 1898. The drawing evokes an unsettlingly tense atmosphere, directed toward all that unfolds without a single detail escaping its control. The organ par excellence dedicated to sight, and therefore to knowledge of the world, becomes a symbol of the race toward technological innovation that defines not only the 19th but also the 21st century.

Credits to: Vincenzo Profeta

https://www.milanofinanza.it/news/palantir-e-la-visionaria-repubblica-tecnologica-del-suo-ceo-alex-karp-202602231247381975

Everyone talks about the main exhibition.

But during the 2026 Venice Biennale, the real experience happens outside the official venues.

Venice transforms into a diffused museum, where palaces, foundations, independent spaces, and hidden corners become part of a global art ecosystem.

Are the collateral events becoming more relevant than the Biennale itself?

A sculpture of President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, echoing the iconic Titanic scene, appeared in front of the United States Capitol on March 10. While the artist is anonymous, the artwork has a clear name: “King of the World”, another reference to the famous romantic film.

A plaque on the statue reads: “The tragic love story between Jack and Rose was built on luxurious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches. This monument honors the bond between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, a friendship seemingly built on luxurious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches.”

We are witnessing one of the most spectacular and explicit representations of the United States of America since the Charging Bull by Arturo Di Modica. This monumental bronze sculpture was illegally placed by the artist in 1989 in front of the New York Stock Exchange and has since become one of the city's most iconic symbols. For some it represents capitalism, for others hope in the future and resilience. One could say that the bronze statue that has appeared in recent days, while sharing certain similarities with the Bull, leaves no room for optimistic interpretations, it is instead a critique that highlights the declared connection between Trump and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein through a pop and ironic lens.

The South African government has officially confirmed its withdrawal from the 61st edition of the Venice Biennale 2026. At the heart of the controversy was "Elegy" by Gabrielle Goliath, a video-performance work initiated in 2015, dedicated to victims of femicide and the murders of LGBTQI+ individuals in South Africa. For the Venice Biennale, the artist had conceived a new chapter of the project, including a tribute to Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed during an Israeli airstrike in October 2023. It was precisely this segment that prompted a response from Minister of Culture Gayton McKenzie, who described the Gaza section as “highly divisive” and requested its modification. When the artist refused to alter the content, the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) cancelled the entire projecton January 2, 2026. Could we consider the government decision an act of institutional responsibility or censorship?