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On Sunday, artists Alexandra Sukhareva and Kirill Savchenkov, as well as curator Raimundas Malaauskas, announced their withdrawal from the pavilion. Rather than appointing a new artist and curator, the Russian Pavilion appeared to indicate that it would not be hosting an exhibition at the Biennale this year, which begins in April. "The Russian Pavilion will remain closed," the pavilion's organizers announced in an Instagram post.
It's the latest retaliation from the country's art sector, which has seen some institutions shut down exhibitions or put on hold work on future displays in protest of the invasion. The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, one of Russia's most prominent institutions of its kind, announced this weekend that it will postpone exhibitions honoring Anne Imhof, Helen Marten, and other internationally renowned artists. Meanwhile, Ragnar Kjartansson closed an exhibition at Moscow's GES-2 House of Culture a few weeks before it was set to close.
In a t message on social media on Sunday, Savchenkov and Sukhareva stated they had dropped out of the Russian Pavilion due to the current situation in Ukraine. "When civilians are dying under missile fire, citizens of Ukraine are hiding in shelters, and Russian demonstrators are being stifled, there is no place for art," they said. Malaauskas added in a separate statement that as a Lithuanian who lived in the Soviet Union prior to its disintegration in 1989, he felt unable to continue organizing the pavilion. "In view of Russia's military invasion and the bombing of Ukraine, I am unable to continue working on this project," he stated. "Politically and emotionally, this conflict is intolerable."
The news comes as Ukraine's participation in the Venice Biennale is in jeopardy. Last week, artist Pavlo Makov and curators Lizaveta German, Maira Lanko, and Borys Filonenko stated they wanted to stage the pavilion this year but were "unable to continue working on the pavilion project because to the danger to our lives" due to the invasion. "We express the hope that world diplomacy will find the strength to achieve a shared peaceful settlement in the shortest period feasible," the Biennale said in a statement last week.
Selena Mattei 
