In a letter sent on Wednesday 22 April to the management of the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art, Mogens Jensen, Chairman of the Committee on Culture, Science, Communication and the Media of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, described as “appalling” their decision to allow Russia to reopen its national pavilion at the 2026 edition of the Biennale.
Mogens Jensen’s position was shared by 77 members of the Assembly who signed a Written Declaration entitled ‘Vladimir Putin’s Russia should not be allowed to the Venice Biennale’, published on 21 April 2026.
Like Mogens Jensen, they reaffirm the values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law on which the Council of Europe is founded, and point out that culture must serve these values, “[and] not provide legitimacy to a State conducting an illegal war of aggression against Ukraine”.
“Cultural cleansing is used as a weapon of war in Ukraine to deny the existence of a different cultural identity and erase its historical roots, values, heritage, literature, traditions, and language”, writes Mogens Jensen.
To the argument of “artistic freedom” put forward by the Fondazione Biennale, he replies that it would have been appropriate to “give a voice” to the Russian artists, film-makers and writers currently imprisoned, who “represent the authentic culture of a free Russia”. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)