"Kostiantyn Doroshenko, a Ukrainian art critic and curator tells The Art Newspaper that Russia’s impending participation in the Biennale has “caused outrage” in Ukraine, and “not only in the art world, but also in society as a whole”. Doroshenko notes that Russia’s pavilion structure in the Giardini, designed by the architect Alexey Shchusev and completed in 1914, “was originally built with money from the [Ukrainian] patron Bogdan Khanenko”. He also points out that some international art figures boycotted the tenth edition of the biennial Manifesta, held at the State Hermitage Museum in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea. “Since then, the situation has become even more egregious,” he says.In 2022, the Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky called Russian exhibitions abroad “a powerful cultural offensive,” comparing them to a “special operation.” “The management of the Venice Biennale would do well to take this into account,” says Doroshenko. “The format that the Russian Federation intends to present at the forum demonstrates a classic colonial approach to representing countries and peoples through their exoticization and marginalization in relation to modernity.”Full text by Sophia Kishkovsky: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/03/06/pussy-riot-slams-plans-russian-pavilion-venice-biennale