Artist and curators refuse to open Israel pavilion at Venice Biennale until cease-fire, hostage deal

VENICE, Italy (AP) — The artist and curators representing Israel at this year’s Venice Biennale announced on Tuesday they won't open the Israeli pavilion exhibit until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and an agreement to release hostages seized by Hamas on Oct. 7.

Their decision, praised as courageous by the festival’s main curator, was posted on a sign in the window of the Israeli pavilion on the first day of media previews, ahead of the Biennale contemporary art fair opening on Saturday.

“The art can wait, but the women, children and people living through hell cannot,” the curators said in a statement together with the artist. It expressed horror at both the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and that of the relatives of hostages seized in the militant Hamas group's Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Israel is among 88 national participants in the 60th Venice Biennale, which runs from April 20-Nov. 24. The Israeli pavilion was built in 1952 as a permanent representation of Israel inside the Giardini, the original venue of the world’s oldest contemporary art show and the site of 29 national pavilions. Other nations show in the nearby Arsenale or at venues throughout the city.

This year, the Israeli exhibit has been titled “(M)otherland” by artist Ruth Patir.

Even before the preview, thousands of artists, curators and critics had signed an open letter calling on the Biennale to exclude the Israeli national pavilion from this year’s show to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. Those opposed to Israel's presence had also vowed to protest on-site.

Italy’s culture minister had firmly backed Israel’s participation, and the fair was opening amid unusually heightened security.

Written in English, the announcement Tuesday of Israel's delayed opening read: “The artist and curators of the Israeli pavilion will open the exhibition when a cease-fire and hostage release agreement is reached.” Two Italian soldiers stood guard nearby.

In a statement, Patir said she and the curators wanted to show solidarity with the families of the hostages “and the large community in Israel who is calling for change.”

“As an artist and educator, I firmly object to cultural boycott, but I have a significant difficulty in presenting a project that speaks about the vulnerability of life in a time of unfathomed disregard for it,” Patir said in the statement.

Patir, who remained in Venice on Tuesday, declined further comment. Neither the Biennale organizers nor the Israeli culture ministry commented.

The curators of the Israeli pavilion, Mira Lapidot and Tamar Margalit, said they were delaying the opening of the exhibit because of the “horrific war that is raging in Gaza,” but that they hoped the conditions would change so the exhibit could open for public view.

“There is no end in sight, only the promise of more pain, loss, and devastation. The exhibition is up and the pavilion is waiting to be opened,” they said. For now, a video work made by Patir can be seen through the pavilion window.

Adriano Pedrosa, the Brazilian curator of the main show at the Biennale, praised the gesture.

“It’s a very courageous decision,” Pedrosa told The Associated Press. “I think it’s a very wise decision as well” because it is “very difficult to present a work in this particular context.”

The national pavilions at Venice are independent of the main show, and each nation decides its own show, which may or may not play into the curator’s vision.

Palestinian artists are participating in collateral events in Venice and three Palestinian artists' works are to appear in Pedrosa's main show, titled “Stranieri Ovunque — Foreigners Everywhere,” which has a preponderance of artists from the global south.

Pedrosa, the artistic director of Brazil’s Sao Paulo Museum of Art, said one of the Palestinian artists, New York-based Khaled Jarrar, was not physically in Venice because he couldn't get a visa.

Geopolitics is no stranger to the Biennale. The Italian festival discouraged, and then banned, South Africa’s participation during apartheid. Russian artists withdrew their participation in 2022 to protest the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, and the Biennale said Russia did not request to participate this year.

The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants carried out a cross-border attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has so far killed over 33,700 Palestinians, according to local health officials, causing widespread devastation. The United Nations has warned of imminent famine in northern Gaza.

Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield in Rome and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

People stand in front of the closed Israeli national pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art fair in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024 The sign at right announced that the artist and curators representing Israel at this year's Venice Biennale won't open the Israeli pavilion until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and an agreement to release hostages taken Oct. 7.(AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Italian Carabinieri paramilitary police and an Italian soldier patrol the Israeli national pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art fair in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. The artist and curators representing Israel at this year's Venice Biennale have announced Tuesday they won't open the Israeli pavilion until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and an agreement to release hostages taken Oct. 7.(AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

People stand in front of the closed Israeli national pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art fair in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. The sign announces that the artist and curators representing Israel at this year's Venice Biennale won't open the Israeli pavilion until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and an agreement to release hostages taken Oct. 7. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Italian police and an Italian soldier stand in front of the closed Israeli national pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art fair in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. The artist and curators representing Israel at this year's Venice Biennale have announced Tuesday they won't open the Israeli pavilion until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and an agreement to release hostages taken Oct. 7.(AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

An Italian soldier stands in front of the closed Israeli national pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art fair in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. The artist and curators representing Israel at this year's Venice Biennale have announced Tuesday they won't open the Israeli pavilion until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and an agreement to release hostages taken Oct. 7.(AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Italian soldiers patrol the Israeli national pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art fair in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. The artist and curators representing Israel at this year's Venice Biennale have announced Tuesday they won't open the Israeli pavilion until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and an agreement to release hostages taken Oct. 7. (AP Photo/Colleen Barry)

A woman takes a photo as an Italian soldier patrols the Israeli national pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art fair in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. The artist and curators representing Israel at this year's Venice Biennale have announced Tuesday they won't open the Israeli pavilion until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and an agreement to release hostages taken Oct. 7.(AP Photo/Colleen Barry)

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican legislators moved Monday to enact a ban in Kansas on gender-affirming care for minors and bar state employees from advocating social transitioning for transgender youth, brushing aside criticism that they were hurting the state's image.

The GOP-supermajority Kansas House expected to vote on overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's veto only hours after the Senate did on a 27-13 vote, exactly the required two-thirds margin. The vote in the House was expected to be close after LGBTQ+ rights advocates raised questions about whether the provision against promoting social transitioning is written broadly enough to apply to public school teachers who show empathy for transgender students.

Under the bill, social transitioning includes “the changing of an individual’s preferred pronouns or manner of dress,” and the rule would apply to state workers who care for children. The measure doesn’t spell out what constitutes promoting it.

The bill is part of a broader push to roll back transgender rights from Republican lawmakers in statehouses across the U.S. Kansas would be the 25th state to restrict or ban such care for minors, and this week the South Carolina Senate expected to debate a similar measure that already has passed the state House.

“Unfortunately, in today’s society, the predator in particular is a woke health care system,” said Republican state Sen. Mark Steffen, a central Kansas anesthesiologist and pain management specialist.

Like other Republicans across the U.S., Steffen and other GOP lawmakers in Kansas argued that they're protecting children struggling with their gender identities from being pushed into health care that the lawmakers see as experimental and potentially harmful. But that puts them at odds with the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other major U.S. medical groups.

LGBTQ+ rights groups such as Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and Equality Kansas have stopped short of saying they would challenge the new law in court, but they've said they believe the provisions preventing state employees from advocating social transitioning violates their free speech rights. They've said that provision makes the Kansas law more sweeping than laws in other states.

Other critics argued that enacting such a ban sends a message that transgender residents aren't welcome. When Kelly vetoed a similar ban last year, she suggested that it would hurt the state's business climate.

“This is not the message we want to send to Americans about the welcoming opportunities that Kansas has,” said state Sen. Tom Holland, a northeastern Kansas Democrat.

About 300,000 youths ages 13 to 17 identify as transgender in the U.S., according to estimates by the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ+ research center at UCLA Law. It estimates that in Kansas, about 2,100 youths in that age group identify as transgender.

Republican lawmakers last year enacted laws barring transgender girls and women from female college and K-12 sports teams and ending legal recognition of transgender residents' gender identities. Transgender residents no longer can change the listing for “sex” on their driver's licenses or birth certificates to match their gender identities, something Kelly's administration had allowed.

“I do feel like there’s a genuine fear about me and what my body means, when I’m very happy,” Issac Johnson, who is transgender and just finished a social work internship in Topeka’s public schools, said during a recent Statehouse news conference.

Transgender youth, parents of transgender children and dozens of medical and mental health providers all described gender-affirming care as life-saving and argued that it lessens severe depression and suicidal tendencies among transgender youth. At least 200 health care providers signed a letter to lawmakers opposing a veto override.

During the Senate's debate Monday, Democratic Minority Leader Dinah Sykes' voice wavered as she spoke against the bill and told transgender residents, “We accept you and we cherish you.”

“I urge my colleagues to show grace and kindness,” she said.

But supporters of the bill repeatedly cited the recent decision of the National Health Service of England to stop covering puberty blockers as a routine treatment for gender dysphoria in minors.

NHS England issued a nearly 400-page report from its review, concluding that there is not enough evidence about the long-term effects of gender-affirming care or how well it works. In a foreword, the review’s leader added, “This is an area of remarkably weak evidence.”

Kansas Senate Health Committee Chair Beverly Gossage, a Kansas City-area Republican, told her colleagues: “We’re on the right side of history on this.”

Supporters of the bill also said many of their constituents simply have strong misgivings about medical treatments for children struggling with their gender identities.

The proposed ban would require Kansas to revoke the medical license of any doctor who violates it. It would bar gender-affirming care from being provided on state property or by recipients of state tax dollars.

Kansas' Medicaid program, providing health coverage for poor and disabled residents, also couldn't cover gender-affirming care. On Monday, in a case likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal appeals court ruled that West Virginia and North Carolina’s refusal to cover certain health care for transgender people with government-sponsored insurance is discriminatory.

“The language put in the bill is, in my opinion, is to try to prevent state entities, state employees, from promoting the use of different pronouns and, if you will, the search for gender change,” Republican state Rep. John Eplee, a northeastern Kansas family physician.

Kansas Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa, speaks against overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's veto of a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Sykes argues that the ban would deny transgender children crucial care that helps lessen severe depression and suicidal tendencies. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas state Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, speaks against overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's veto of a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors, Monday, April 29, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Holland suggested that the ban would send a message that Kansas is not welcoming. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Lobbyists Brittany Jones, left, of the conservative group Kansas Family Voice, and Lucrecia Nold, right, of the Kansas Catholic Conference, watch from the Senate's west gallery as members debate overriding a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors, Monday, April 29, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Both of their organizations support a ban. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Isaac Johnson, who just completed an internship with Topeka's public schools and is finishing work on a social work degree, talks to reporters during a news conference, Thursday, April 26, 2024, in front of a mural at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Johnson, who is transgender, worries about the effects of a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors, which also would bar state employees from promoting social transitioning for youth. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly speaks at a public event, Monday, April 29, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Kelly has vetoed a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors that also would bar state employees from advocating social transitioning for transgender children. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas state Sen. Mark Steffen, R-Hutchison, speaks in favor of overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's veto of a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors, Monday, April 29, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Steffen says the state must protect "confused" children from a "confused health care system and confused parents." (AP Photo/John Hanna)