Russia pavilion drags Venice Biennale into EU sanctions row

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The Venice Biennale will breach EU sanctions if it includes Russia’s national pavilion, Brussels has warned Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Italian government, as a row over Moscow’s participation escalates ahead of the cultural gala’s opening.

The European Commission has warned Rome and the biennale’s organisers in letters seen by the FT that allowing it to participate would violate a ban on “providing services” to the Kremlin, as the Russian pavilion is owned by Vladimir Putin’s government.

“By not respecting EU sanctions, Biennale has called into question its obligation to ensure respect of EU values,” the Commission’s agency for culture wrote in a letter to the event’s organisers.

“Any cost that Russia is covering to enable the Russian delegation of artists to participate at the biennale benefits the biennale, and appears to qualify as indirect provision of economic support,” a separate letter sent by the Commission to the Italian government said.

The decision by the biennale’s president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, to allow Russia to stage an exhibition at its national pavilion for the first time since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has embarrassed Meloni’s government.

Kyiv has said the prestigious international air fair ‘‘must not become a stage for whitewashing the war crimes that Russia commits daily against the Ukrainian people and our cultural heritage’’.

Brussels has sought “clarifications on the arrangements between the biennale and the Russian government to assess their compatibility with the sanctions regulations”, the letter said.

A Commission spokesperson confirmed the existence of the letters in a statement to the FT and said there was a deadline of 30 days for the Biennale to reply.

“Cultural events funded by European taxpayers money should safeguard democratic values, foster open dialogue, diversity and freedom of expression — values which are not respected in today’s Russia,” the spokesperson added.

Meloni’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The biennale said in a statement on Tuesday that it had ‘‘verified and complied with all national and international regulations’’, adding that it had ‘‘operated within the scope and limits of its own authority’’.

The Commission in March threatened to terminate its three-year, €2mn grant to the biennale, saying it “strongly condemned” a decision “not compatible with the EU’s collective response to Russia’s brutal aggression”.

However, Buttafuoco, who was appointed by Meloni’s right-wing coalition in 2024 to run this year’s biennale, has resisted pressure from Brussels and Italian cultural minister Alessandro Giuli to reconsider Russia’s participation, saying that he was deeply committed to free speech.

Meloni said last week that she disagreed with Buttafuoco’s decision to allow Russia to participate, but that the biennale foundation operated autonomously without government interference.

“The government declared it didn’t agree with the decision regarding the Russian pavilion but then the biennale is an autonomous body and Buttafuoco is a very capable person,” Meloni told reporters. “I wouldn’t have made this decision in his place.”

The Russian pavilion is operated by Smart Art, a company co-founded by Ekaterina Vinokurova and Anastasia Karneeva. Karneeva is the daughter of a retired general and deputy director of Rostec, the state defence conglomerate. Vinokurova is the daughter of Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister.

“You don’t invite someone into their own house. Each country decides for itself whether to take part,” Karneeva told the Russian state news agency TASS on Monday, when asked about Russia’s participation in Venice.

In an attempt to mollify the EU, the biennale has decided the Russian pavilion will only be open to specially invited guests — namely art critics and other selected visitors — for previews and the vernissage, which runs through Friday.

The Russian pavilion will be closed once the event opens to the public on Saturday.

In 2022, the Russian national pavilion was closed after the artists chosen to represent the country refused to open the exhibition in protest against the war.