Can the Venice Biennale maintain its model in today’s political climate?

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Under persistent showers at the Venice Biennale preview Wednesday, a lone man in a trench coat made his opinion known: NO JURY NO PRIZE was graffitied on his back, a reference to the resignation of the exhibition’s jury because Russia and Israel were allowed to participate. It was a quiet statement in the midst of a prestigious global art exhibition riven by political divisions and much louder protests … if you go looking for them.

The notorious Russian performance group Pussy Riot protested outside the Russian pavilion in the Giardini, the historic park that houses half of the event, while nearby, artists from the big group exhibition staged a noon-hour parade mimicking the sound of Israeli drones used in the war in Gaza.

Meanwhile, over at the Arsenale, a former naval installation that houses the other half, including this year’s Israeli pavilion, the Art Not Genocide Alliance protested Israel’s participation.

Yet to many of the curators, collectors and critics who use the Biennale as a useful survey of trends in art, the protests were easy to miss, especially if you were indoors sheltering from the rain.

This year’s Biennale has proved particularly controversial because its administration has welcomed Russia and Israel through a series of ungainly compromises.

Russia, which was forced to close its pavilion in 2022 and then lent it to Bolivia in 2024, is staging a performance that will only be shown during the preview week and then close to the general public.

When Pussy Riot wasn’t in sight, many Biennale visitors could be seen entering the pavilion where glasses of prosecco were on offer. (The Italian government is investigating whether the Biennale is breaking the sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine.)

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Meanwhile, there was heavy security outside Israel’s usual pavilion in the Giardini, but it is closed for renovations and artist Belu-Simion Fainaru is going ahead with an exhibition in a temporary space at the Arsenale. In 2024, artist Ruth Patir had said she would not open her show in the Israel pavilion until a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas.

The Biennale exhibition’s jury, which would normally hand out prizes for both the best national pavilion and the best artist in the big group show, did not name Israel nor Russia in April when it announced it would not judge participants who had been charged with war crimes. It was then forced to resign last week as the Biennale administration announced it had instituted people’s choice prizes instead of the juried awards.

But the controversy over the participation of Russia and Israel and the preview-week protests are mere symptoms of the Biennale’s larger problem: Can it maintain the increasingly outdated model of the world fair with national pavilions in an era that is postcolonial yet marked by resurgent nationalism?

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At their worst, both those currents can produce propaganda rather than art while the pavilion model can feel laughably out of date. Every other year, artists at the German pavilion must find new ways to deconstruct that building’s Nazi-era architecture while the Czech organizers of this year’s exhibition in the Czechoslovakia pavilion have to remind you that country no longer exists.

At the nearby Canada pavilion, National Gallery of Canada director Jean-François Bélise sheltered from a sudden downpour under a bright blue umbrella as he introduced artist Abbas Akhavan, the creator of an installation that features an artificial pond with real lilies, a fur coat with a fountain hidden in its sleeve and other watery effects.

For many countries and many artists, the show must go on, protests or rain showers notwithstanding.