Demonstrators from Pussy Riot group held a protest at Venice Biennale's International Art Exhibition on May 7, 2026. | REUTERS

There was a relentless drizzle on the press preview day of Venice’s 61st Art Biennale, turning the city’s Giardini park into a giant mud patch scattered with unavoidable puddles. (The first public day is May 9; the exhibition runs until Nov. 22.) Inside the park, more than two dozen national pavilions hosting individual exhibitions provided respite from the rain.

It was a welcome change from the months preceding this Biennale, where the pavilions weren’t as much shelters as they were flashpoints for relentless, feverish controversy.…