Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano has shut down calls to exclude Israel from the Venice Biennale, citing the escalating humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s war in Gaza.
Sangiuliano’s comments were shared in a statement posted on the Italian Ministry of Culture’s website in response to the Art Not Genocide Alliance’s call for Israeli inaction, citing genocide concerns. The organization noted that the prestigious art event banned apartheid in South Africa in 1968 and released a message of support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion in 2022.
But San Giuliano suggested that for Gaza, excluding Israel would be equivalent to suppressing “freedom of thought” and “creative expression.”
“The arbitrary decisions of those who believe themselves to be the custodians of truth and who, with arrogance and hatred, threaten the freedom of thought and creative expression in a democratic and free country like Italy,” San Giuliano said in a statement. “This is shameful and unacceptable.” .
“Israel not only has the right to artistic expression, but at a moment like this, when we are under intense attack by ruthless terrorists, we have an obligation to bear witness to our people,” he continued. “My deepest feelings of solidarity and intimacy are with the State of Israel, its artists, and all its citizens.”
Following San Giuliano’s remarks, the Art Not Genocide Alliance responded to San Giuliano’s assertion that “culture is a bridge between people and nations, not a barrier.”
“More than 13,000 people took part in the movement to exclude Israel from the Venice Biennale. If the apartheid state provides a platform for Israel, which is carrying out genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, then the Biennale should be “a space for freedom, assembly and dialogue.” ’,” the alliance said.
The alliance added that culture is not a bridge between peoples and nations “when one nation engages in the exclusion of another and its people are trapped behind walls of division.”
“We advocate dignity, humanity and accountability on the global cultural stage. We stand against the massacres in Gaza and the killing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and we stand against the “We call on them to be held to the same standards of culture as well as law as their peers,” the alliance said. “Freedom of thought and creative expression is only threatened when artists turn away from reality.”
San Giuliano, a former journalist, left his post as director of Italy’s state-run news channel TG2 in 2022 to join the far-right populist government of Georgia Meloni. He was previously associated with political parties associated with neofascism.
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