On May 8, during the pre-opening of the Venice Biennale, the independent collective ANGA (Art Not Genocide Alliance) organized a strike protesting genocide and precarity in the art world. Pro-Palestinian activists entered the Arsenale, where part of the exhibition "In Minor Keys" curated by the late Koyo Kouoh was installed, and hung posters on artworks calling for the liberation of Palestine and denouncing what they described as the Biennale's "art-washing" of Israel's reputation. The disruption blurred the line between activist intervention and the exhibition itself, as many works already addressed Palestine directly, including a poem by Refaat Alareer placed at the entrance.
This incident matters because it exposes the growing tension between cultural institutions' claims of neutrality and the increasingly politicized reality of the art world. The article argues that institutions like the Venice Biennale and the Cannes Film Festival are imposing rigid boundaries on permissible speech, particularly around the words "Palestine" and "genocide," while abandoning pretense of neutrality in other contexts. The strike and subsequent jury resignations reflect a broader movement by artists, curators, and cultural workers to contest these boundaries and insist that art cannot avoid making a political difference.