Venice Biennale's National Pavilion Model Faces Criticism Amid Global Art World Shifts

In 2011, Ana Teresa Fernández's performance 'Borrando la Frontera' at the US-Mexico border utilized sky-blue paint to symbolically erase parts of the boundary, highlighting art's ability to challenge political divisions. This stands in stark contrast to the national pavilion system of the Venice Biennale, which has been in place since 1895. Works like John Constable's 'Flatford Mill' (1816-7) and J.M.W. Turner's 'The Fighting Temeraire' (1839) reflected British culture during the era of colonial expansion. Representation became vital for emerging nations such as Hungary. By 1993, Hans Haacke's installation criticized this framework. Since 1993, Nuova Icona has supported the pavilions of marginalized nations, including Palestine as a 'collateral event' in 2009. However, despite art's global ambitions, physical borders persist, and Fernández's painted border did not change migration realities.