Belarus does not have its own stationary pavilion in Venice, and therefore a new space is selected for the demonstration of the pavilion every time. According to the conditions of the Venice Biennale, national pavilions are presented most often by state institutions, in the case of Belarus, the organizer of the pavilion is the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Belarus.

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Featured Events:

2005

In the form of an unofficial Belarus pavilion, a group exhibition (without a curator) in Venice featured works by Ruslan Vashkevich, Natalia Zaloznaya, Igor Tishin, Vladimir Tsesler and Sergei Voichenko, Valery Pesin.

2009

As a critical statement to the Ministry of Culture, which has never organized a Belarusian pavilion in Venice, the curatorial duet of Ruslan Vashkevich and Lizaveta Mikhalchuk organized a large-scale group exhibition of Belarusian contemporary art "Belarusian Pavilion of the 53rd Venice Biennale" in Minsk in the BelExpo space.

2011

The first official participation of Belarus at the Venice Biennale: the KODEX group project curated by Mikhail Borozna. It was discussed in a rather critical manner by the Belarusian art community, which was surprised by the curatorial concept and expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation and technical design of the pavilion itself, which looked more like an office building. But the main thing is that it was not a rather closed nature of the selection of representatives of Belarus to participate in the biennale, which were single-handedly determined by the Ministry of Culture.

2013

Belarus again did not take part in the biennale, which caused a wave of indignation in the community.

2015

In 2015, apparently paying attention to the unfolding discussions, the organizers of the national competition of curatorial concepts of the Belarusian pavilion for the first time decide on an open competition. However, the composition of the commission, the discussion of projects and the determination of the winner are still closed behind the scenes. And representatives of exclusively state institutions and artists loyal to the official art discourse participate in the meetings of the commission.

Belarus at the 56th Venice Biennale, as a result, presented the project of the artist Alexei Shinkarenko and curator Olga Rybchinskaya "War Witness Archive". The authors of which were in a state of anxiety when, a month before the official opening of the Biennale, the Ministry of Culture and the commissioner of the Belarusian pavilion did not purchase the equipment necessary for the exhibition and did not transfer the promised funds to the account of the creative team of the project.

2017

The pavilion presented the personal project "Table" by Roman Zaslonov in collaboration with Viktor Lobkovich and Sergey Talybov.

2019

The Belarusian pavilion was presented by Konstantin Selikhanov's personal project "Exit" (curator: Olga Rybchinskaya ).

2021

The Venice Biennale has been postponed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

2022

Three months before the start of the biennale, the National Center for Contemporary Art, which traditionally organizes the Belarusian pavilion, refused to participate in the Venice Biennale due to the lack of art projects. The jury at the Ministry of Culture was unable to choose a curatorial concept in the competition, so the Ministry of Culture refused to participate. It should be noted that the artistic community partially boycotted the competition due to total state control.

Attempts to organize an alternative pavilion by the "Ambassade of Culture" initiative also failed due to the start of a full-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine, and the organizers focused on creating another Antiwarcoalition.art project.

Shareholder Alexei Kuzmich organized a rally near the walls of the closed Russian pavilion. In the image of a native, he added the part BELO to the word RUSSIA and shouted out a fascist salute.

Also at the end of the biennale, the artists of the art group Hutkasmachnaa visited the Russian pavilion and other venues of the forum. Dressed in a bright uniform of a Belarusian ZhES employee, the performer performed typical work at Venetian locations - cleaning, sweeping, which caused sincere surprise not only among tourists, but also among the security guards of the international festival.

In the last days of the Venice Biennale, the organizers of the Antiwarcoalition.art platform held two public discussions in the National Pavilions of Poland and Lithuania on the topics "Future for all" and "Infrastructure of care".