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. The Biennale is meant to be an international gathering showcasing the cream of the art world, with a humongous exhibition at its center surrounded (metaphorically) by exhibitions in national pavilions, which are generally organized by governments’ cultural organizations, sometimes with outside curators, most often with national artists.…