Artists threaten the Venice Biennale with legal action

The Biennale’s management decided to organize a public vote for the best artist and the best pavilion after the professional jury that traditionally decided the awards resigned in April in protest of Israel and Russia’s participation in the Biennale.

The management decided on a quick schedule that the best artist and the best pavilion would be awarded with the new “Visitors’ Lion” award at the end of the biennial.

Finland pavilion artist Jenna Sutela and the Finnish artist of the Nordic pavilion Benjamin Orlow have signed a letter in which the artists demand that their names be removed from the public vote. Also CEO of Frame, the contemporary art organization responsible for Finland’s biennale participation Juha Huuskonen is among more than a hundred signatories.

The names of the Biennale’s Finnish artists and curators are also in a recent letter, in which a hundred or so artists express their dissatisfaction with the public vote and threaten the Biennale with legal action. However, Huuskonen clarifies that, for now, the Finnish Pavilion has no position on whether Frame would be involved in, for example, suing the biennale organization.

“Yes, basically we support this very same basic idea, which is in the letter”, says Huuskonen.

Biennial began to stir when the biennale’s management decided in March to allow Russia to participate in the biennale. After this, the prize committee said that it will not award prizes to countries accused of war crimes.

The International Criminal Court has investigated Russia for waging a war of aggression in Ukraine and Israel, which is accused of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Award Committee resigned from the position at the end of April, after which a large number of artists and curators announced that their names should not be included in the vote. With this, the artists wanted to show their support to the award committee.

“Let’s say this clearly: we have no problem with letting the public vote on the awards,” the artists say in their recent letter.

Juha Huuskonen, who is responsible for the Finnish Pavilion, opens up more about the matter on the phone:

“We would rather show support to the jury, which had to resign. It seems that what has been the logic of the award is being disregarded. It has been given by art experts for a long time,” says Huuskonen.

Biennale visitors have received voting forms by e-mail with the names of artists who refused to vote.

Biennial organization quoth however, to The New York Times that if the artists have refused to participate in the public vote, the votes given to them will not be taken into account in the bill.

Finland Juha Huuskonen, who is in charge of the pavilion, does not see the external artistic controversies related to the biennale as only a bad thing.

“At this time, there are conflicts that are very strongly in the public debate and around which there are strong positions in any case. If the biennale was a bubble where this could not be seen in any way, it would have been even stranger.”

Huuskonen hopes that the biennale would change to listen to more artists in the future. It already seems that the art community and the pavilions of different countries have learned to organize themselves better.

He is confident that the art seen in Venice has received and will receive attention in any case. He considers Finland’s participation in the next biennale in 2028 very likely.

“In terms of the core, that is, the content of art, it is an excellent year. The biggest question is whether there will be such a change in the biennial organization in the future that they will listen to the wishes of the art community.”