{"id":260055,"date":"2026-05-05T17:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T13:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/?p=260055"},"modified":"2026-05-05T17:56:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T13:56:01","slug":"iran-withdraws-from-venice-biennale-amid-middle-east-tensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/news\/260055\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran withdraws from Venice Biennale amid Middle East tensions"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><p>The Islamic Republic of Iran has withdrawn from the 2026 Venice Biennale just days before the opening exhibition, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/culture\/2026\/05\/05\/iran-exits-venice-biennale-as-tensions-remains-high-in-middle-east\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Euronews<\/a> writes.<\/p>\n<p>In a short statement published on the exhibition&rsquo;s website, organizers said the Islamic Republic would not take part in the contemporary visual arts exhibition. However, no reasons for the withdrawal were given.<\/p>\n<p>The publication notes that the withdrawal is not entirely surprising, as tensions remain high in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>This year&rsquo;s edition has already been affected by the tragic untimely death of its curator Koyo Kouoh and the decision of the organizers to invite Russia and Israel to participate.<\/p>\n<p>In response, the jury resigned en masse last week after saying it wouldn&rsquo;t consider entries from countries whose leaders are subject to international arrest warrants for crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n<p>In the absence of a jury, the two main Golden Lion prizes for best national pavilion and best artist will now be decided by a public vote with the award ceremony now set to take place in November instead of this month.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Islamic Republic of Iran has withdrawn from the 2026 Venice Biennale just days before the opening exhibition, Euronews writes. In a short statement published on the exhibition&rsquo;s website, organizers said the Islamic Republic would not take part in the contemporary visual arts exhibition. However, no reasons for the withdrawal were given. The publication notes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":260052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,47,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-society","category-culture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260056,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260055\/revisions\/260056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}