Arte contemporanea, storia contemporanea, tempo presente
Gerardo de Simone
Emanuele Pellegrini
This editorial reflects on the 2026 Venice Biennale, whose national-pavilion structure has become the focal point of unprecedented political controversy, prompting a broader question about the continued relevance of nationality as an organizing principle for contemporary art. It contrasts this institutional “theatre” with two more urgent artistic gestures occurring simultaneously — an open-air exhibition of found-object art staged by Palestinian artists in the Al-Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, and Banksy’s new statue in London depicting a flag-blinded marcher as a rebuke to nationalist fanaticism (evoking Goya’s Sleep of Reason and Mantegna’s Virtus combusta). The authors ask whether truly urgent contemporary art is being made not within official exhibition venues, but elsewhere.