Clashes erupted at the pro-Pal demonstration at the Venice Biennale, and around twenty national pavilions, between the Giardini and the Arsenale, were closed "anti-Israel." The list currently includes: Austria, Belgium, Egypt, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Finland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Qatar, Malta, Cyprus, Ecuador, the United Kingdom, and the Applied Arts Pavilion, but the list is being updated. The Global Project Telegram channel announced: "Dozens of pavilions and exhibitions at the Venice Biennale remain closed due to a strike by cultural workers protesting the presence of the Israeli Pavilion and the ongoing genocide in Palestine."
Meanwhile, tensions are running high this afternoon at the "unprecedented" demonstration organized by, among others, the Anga - Art Not Genocide Alliance collective. Leading the march was a banner reading "No to the genocide pavilion, yes to artworkists' rights." Numerous Palestinian flags were held, along with keffiyehs around their necks and signs with slogans like "Free Palestine, abolish Zionism." "We are here because the genocide has never stopped," one of the protesters said into a megaphone before setting off, "and someone wants us to believe that covering up the genocide with a pavilion at the Biennale is enough. We have a duty to be on the streets to reclaim our political space, to say that we cannot accept either the genocide or the artwashing that covers up the genocidal policies of the State of Israel."
Minister Matteo Salvini also arrived in the afternoon: "I'm here for Venice and the Biennale, and to do my part to put an end to the controversy that shouldn't involve an extraordinary organization like the Biennale Foundation."
(Unioneonline)
