VENICE, Italy (AP) — The Venice Biennale previewed its 61st and most chaotic edition ever on Tuesday, just days after the unprecedented resignation of its jury over the participation of Israel and Russia undermined the very structure of the world’s oldest contemporary art exhibition.

Tensions were evident as Ukrainian artists stood by a truck that had brought a statue of an origami deer from the war-ravaged eastern front to the Biennale's storied Giardini, or gardens. Just meters (yards) away, a handful of participants in the Russian Pavilion danced to house music played by an Argentine DJ.

At the same time, group of Palestinians marched through the Giardini wearing the names of artists who have been killed in Gaza. More protests were expected as the preview week continued.

The developments have put pressure on Biennale’s structure — with 100 national pavilions showing alongside a curated exhibition featuring 110 artists and artist groups — and raised old questions: Is the representation of nations outmoded in a globalized system where artists often operate internationally and does it give states an undue platform for propaganda?

Divisions shake the Biennale

Marie Helene Pereira, one of the five curators of the main exhibition “In Minor Keys,” said she believes that the turmoil surrounding the Biennale shows that "the existence of the nation state within the space of the exhibition’’ is now contested.

“We can see how much that can bring tension, especially in the midst of the political chaos we find our selves,” Pereira said.

Pereira, one of five curators who have taken up the mantle of Koyo Kouoh who died a year ago as she was preparing the exhibition, said that it was "important to be able to rethink structure, rethink institutions, in a way that allows for them to cater more to artists and artmaking.

That didn’t mean that art should be void of politics, she added.

Ahead of its resignation, the jury had said it would not award prizes to countries whose leaders were under investigation by the International Court of Justice, which singled out Russia and Israel.

Some participants welcomed the resignation. Israeli artist Belu-Simion Fainaru said he thought it was “a fair one.”

“I should be treated as an equal artist, and I should not be discriminated because of my race, that I am a Jew, and not because of my nationality or passport. I have to be seen as I am. I am an artist that wants to show my art, and I have the right to be evaluated,” he said standing in front of his installation rooted in the Kabbalah.

The Biennale, he said, should be “a place where you can feel safe to create and do whatever you believe in.”

Giardini on the front lines

Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadryova created “The Origami Deer” to take the place of a nuclear-capable Soviet fighter jet that had long stood in a park in Pokrovsk, in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

Curators of the Ukrainian Pavilion — its third since Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion — evacuated the statue from the park in 2024, with the front line just 5 kilometers (3 miles) away.

Co-curator Ksenia Malykh fiercely opposed the Biennale’s decision to allow Russia to open its pavilion, calling it “a false attempt to stay neutral.”

“You can’t stay neutral in these times. You can’t be neutral when people are dying every day because of Russians,’’ Malykh said.

“Nobody is talking about their art,” she added. “They are only talking about the statement that they are here, and I am absolutely sure this was their goal.”

The Russian Pavilion will only be open to visitors during previews that run through Friday and will not be open to the public after the Biennale opens for its 6 ½ month run on Saturday. The pavilion has organized a series of performers for this week, and had an open bar upstairs near a flowering tree.

Curators were not available for interviews.

Russia’s opening cost the Venice Biennale 2 million euros ($2.3 million) in EU funding over three years. The Biennale has defended the decision, saying that any country with relations with Italy was free to open a pavilion, a position that has put it at odds with the government in Rome.

Still, the official catalog had a place-saving entry where the Russian text should have been, noting that Russia’s participation was “under review” at the time of publication.

No jury, no Golden Lions

Without a jury of peers, there will be no Golden Lion for best national pavilion or best participant in the main curated exhibition — a highly prestigious prize has led some to lien the Biennale to the Olympics of art.

Instead, visitors to both the Giardini and Arsenale sites will choose two winners, for best national participant and best main show participant, to be awarded Nov. 22, the closing day of the Biennale.

The Ukrainian artist Malykh said that lack of professionally awarded prizes damaged the Biennale.

“It’s an important moment. If the prize is given by the public... It’s not a professional institution after that,” Malykh said.