ROME: The Venice Biennale would undermine its autonomy and freedom of expression if it bowed to European Union pressure to shut Russia out of its events, the foundation’s chairman said on Thursday, criticizing the EU’s recent decision to cut funding.
Earlier this week, the EU said it had decided to withdraw a €2 million ($2.3 million) grant in response to the return of Russia to the Biennale’s arts exhibition this year for the first time since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“(The EU) was a fellow traveler with whom we shared part of a journey, and who is now leaving us for reasons that are entirely political, certainly not legal, and still less cultural,” chairman Pietrangelo Buttafuoco said at the presentation of the 2026 Venice Film Festival.
The European Commission said the grant was withdrawn because EU taxpayers’ money should support initiatives that uphold the values of democracy and freedom, which it said Russia does not currently embody.
The Biennale, an international cultural exhibition hosted by Venice every two years, rejected that argument, saying art should remain a neutral space for dialogue. It also said the EU funding co-financed projects run by its cinema division that were unrelated to Russia’s participation in the art exhibition.
