After its 2024 Venice Biennale pavilion was shuttered amid protests on opening day, Israel is set to return to the 61st edition of the international art exhibition this May. 

While the Israeli Culture Ministry has yet to issue an official announcement, Belu-Simion Fainaru, who will represent Israel this year, revealed to ARTnews in a phone interview that the pavilion will be located in the Arsenale, shifting from its previous site in the Giardini.

Fainaru, a Romanian-born sculptor based in Haifa and recipient of the state-issued Israel Prize, will present “Rose of Nothingness,” an exhibition centered around an installation of a body of black water. From a network of ceiling pipes, droplets descend into a shallow pool below to create ripples of patterns. The artist draws inspiration from Paul Celan’s poetry—particularly his imagery of “black milk”—as well as from Kabbalistic concepts of creation and void.

News of Israel’s renewed participation has revived calls for a boycott from the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA), an artist-led group that campaigned for Israel’s exclusion from the 2024 Venice Biennale. As stated in a recent Instagram post, ANGA “demands the immediate and complete exclusion of ‘Israel’ from the Venice Biennale.”

In response, Fainaru stated: “Art is a place for dialogue, not for exclusion,” expressing “I am totally against boycotts.” He says that his piece “will be a vision of hope and human feeling, . . . giving space to everybody.”

ANGA, alerted to Israel’s return to the biennale, countered with a post on January 12: “There can be no place for repair, healing or cultural dialogue until the state of Israel is brought to justice for its crimes.” Threatening a boycott of the biennale, the group has said that it is “ready to escalate” its campaign if the event does not remove the pavilion.