There has been concern over Russia’s reinstatement ever since it was announced by Moscow earlier this year.
The European Commission has “strongly condemned” the move and threatened to pull €2 million in funding for the Biennale. It argues that “Allowing the aggressor, Russia, to shine” on such a platform is against ethical standards linked to the grant.
Italy’s own culture minister will not attend when the fair opens to the public on Saturday.
But deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini – who famously visited Red Square in 2014 in a Putin T-shirt – refuses to join the boycott, arguing that “No pavilion should be excluded.”
One source in Brussels suggested the Commission was not impressed by Italy’s response.
The disquiet over the 61st Biennale goes beyond the return of Russia.
Last week, the entire international jury resigned after a statement that referred to countries with leaders wanted by the ICC for suspected war crimes. It meant Russia and Israel.
On Wednesday morning a separate group of protesters descended on the Israeli exhibit, leaving the floor outside carpeted with rain-sodden leaflets denouncing a “Genocide Pavilion”.
Israel’s foreign ministry has previously criticised a “political jury” for making the Biennale a place of “anti-Israeli political indoctrination”.
As the fuss has grown, the event’s president has resisted requests for interviews. A right-wing former journalist, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, has spoken admiringly in the past of Vladimir Putin.
Today, he broke his near silence on the Biennale to accuse critics of creating a “laboratory of intolerance” and condemn what he styled as censorship and exclusion in calls for Russia and Israel to be banned.
“If the Biennale began to select not works but affiliations, not visions but passports, it would cease to be what it has always been: the place where the world meets,” Buttafuoco announced, then left the press conference before anyone could ask questions.
His argument ignores the point made by posters pasted all over Venice this week. They advertise imaginary events at an “Invisible Biennale” featuring Ukrainian artists and authors like Volodymyr Vakulenko, who was shot when Russian troops occupied his village.
The posters are stamped: “Cancelled. Because the author was killed by Russia.”