Macau showcases ‘Jacone’s Polyphony’ at this year’s Venice Biennale
At the 61st edition of La Biennale di Venezia, Macau’s “Jacone’s Polyphony” brings together the works of three emerging local artists on an international stage.
Curated by Feng Yan and Ng Sio Ieng, the Macau exhibition reinterprets the creative trajectory of the early Qing dynasty painter, poet, and Catholic convert Wu Li.
In 1681, during Emperor Kangxi’s reign, Wu Li traveled south to Macau to study theology, and it was there that he captured the city’s Chinese-Western cultural blend in his poetry album, Poems from St. Paul’s.
In this album, Wu Li also dreamed of missionary work in Rome, a journey that never took place.
That unfinished journey gives the exhibition its structure.
Divided into four indoor halls connected by an outdoor space, the show forms a loop that links past and present.
Within that framework, Eric Fok Hoi Seng’s Layers of Time uses six engraved bamboo and steel panels, along with metal, laser engraving, and digital screens, to explore history and memory. His Distant Views extends the dialogue further, using bidirectional telescopes to link historic Macau with Rome.
Meanwhile, Veronica Lei’s Sigh of Migration blends sculpture, installation, and painting through wire frames, aluminum foil, and dripping candle wax. Together with O Chi Wai’s works, the exhibition builds a joint narrative about culture, faith, and spirit while echoing the Biennale’s “In Minor Keys” theme. This theme was selected by Koyo Kouoh.
The exhibition opens on May 8 and runs free of charge from May 9 to Nov. 22, 2026, marking Macau’s 10th participation in the Biennale since 2007. It is located at Campo della Tana in the Arsenale venue complex, Castello 2126/A.
Hit by protests, jury resignations
This year’s Venice Biennale faces controversy over Russia’s return and Israel’s pavilion amid the Gaza conflict, with jury resignations, protests, and open letters decrying “artwashing.”
For the first time since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia has returned with a pavilion exhibition. Unlike Israel, Russia presented its national exhibition only during preview days, shuttering the pavilion to the public for the rest of the show in compliance with sanctions.
Ukrainian authorities and several European culture ministers have condemned the decision, arguing that a major cultural platform should not normalize a country accused of war crimes.
At the same time, Israel’s pavilion – alongside the United States’ presence – has become another flashpoint.
The 2026 Israel Pavilion at the Venice Biennale faces intense protests, with activists from the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) and other groups organizing a 24-hour strike for May 8, demanding that the pavilion be shut down immediately.
So far, the International Jury of Biennale Arte 2026 has resigned.
Before the resignations, the international jury announced in a statement on April 23 that “this jury will refrain from considering those countries whose leaders are currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC)” – a decision that would have directly affected the inclusion of Russia and Israel.
Ultimately, on April 30, 2026, La Biennale di Venezia announced that it had received the resignations of Solange Farkas (president), Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, and Giovanna Zapperi.
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How does a person catch a fish? Political & Religious propaganda slander works on the exact same principle, they too place worms upon hooks.
The Foundation of the UN predominant Xtian & Muslim voting block nations – propaganda efforts to recognize a Palestinian State – an utter fraud. The genesis scream-out by the UN voting blocks, the EU or African non-aligned nations for example, which post 1967 ad infinitum repeatedly bemoan Israel’s gross violation of “international law” and illegally occupy Palestinian lands & territories – began with the British 1939 Chamberlain White Paper whose Arab appeasement policy followed the betrayal of the Czech Republic.
The White Paper sodomized the terms and obligations which London originally agreed to accept, terms imposed by League of Nations. That contract, whose terms London accepted openly embrace the 1917 Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration defines Herzl’s Political Zionism; which established the Mandate-Protectorate of Palestine – to restore a Jewish National Home\self-determination.
London imperialism, based upon its paidika boy favorite imperialism, sought to permanently rule the League Palestine Mandate as a colony. The 1936-39 Arab revolt forced the coward Chamberlain to adjust British Middle East policy. Post WWII, for example, London attempted to seize the Suez Canal from Nasser’s Egypt; based upon the classic British imperialism to dominate the balance of power in any given region of the world.
London imposed a opium trade monopoly and initiated the Century of Shame upon China. Secretary of State under Lincoln defeated this standard over-used “card” of London. William H. Seward sent two opposing diplomatic notes to PM Palmerston and Foreign Secretary Lord Russel. Based upon the known fact that the two men hated and despised one another. The Yankee blockade of Confederate ports presented a real problem for London.
The genesis of the Industrial Revolution started in Britain late in the 18th century – prior to the Napoleonic wars. Technological development in textile industry mechanization & manufacturing (spinning jenny, water frame, power loom), steam power, iron production, and factory organization caused England to abandon an agricultural based economy; Britain the first country to make slavery illegal, which agricultural based economies like Confederate America absolutely required.
Lancashire’s textile districts, despite the invention by Eli Whitney in the United States (1793) of the cotton gin – which made even short-staple cotton feasible – still heavily dependent on Confederate cotton in 1861–63 (the “Cotton Famine” caused severe unemployment and political pressure). Substitutes (Egypt, India) existed but could not immediately match volume, quality, or supply logistics fast enough to calm British industry.
The Seward stratagem, he dispatched diplomatic notes to Palmerston informing London that Washington would permit Britain to acquire Southern cotton through Mexico. Yet another opposing note sent to Foreign Minister Lord Russel declared: any British attempt to break the Union blockade of Confederate ports through Mexico, Washington would consider as an actus belli\\act of War.
The consequences of this stratagem: it shamed PM Palmerston, not only when Russel waved his diplomatic note before Parliament, but contributed to the failure of the Palmerston government to intervene in Bismarck’s 3 little wars which unified imperial Germany and radically changed the balance of power in Europe! Likewise the 1956 War permanently negated the great power status of both London and Paris in the Middle East.
Voting blocks shape UN political decisions. For example GA 3379 or UN SC Resolutions 446 and 2334, all contributed to forge the basis by which the UN GA later recognized an Arab Palestinian state; Palestine received upgraded UN status in 2012 (GA resolution 67/19) as a non‑member observer state. Which many states propaganda offices treat as de‑facto recognition of statehood. Despite the cold hard fact: never an independent Arab Palestinian state ever historically existed. The British White Paper corrupt foundation declared just prior to the outbreak of WWII, the British intent to establish an Arab 2/3rd majority Palestinian state within 10 years after WWII.
UNSC condemnations of Israeli illegal occupation through settler settlements simply do not in and of themselves “create” statehood. But rather demonize Israel and project propaganda which tremendously increased pressure on Israel to surrender to the will of the UN.
UN Security Council condemnations (e.g., Res. 446, Res. 2334) and General Assembly actions (e.g., GA 67/19) exist only as political instruments of propaganda. Chapter VI condemnations have no enforcement teeth. Chapter VI therefore compares to GA condemnations and\or declarations. Only Korean War Chapter VII ultimatums, empower UN military enforcement. Hence Res. 446, & 2334 exist on par with GA propaganda declarations, and serve as the continuation of British White Paper Jewish Shoah guilt which witnessed the obliteration of 75% of Western European Jewry in less than three years!
The UN did not “discover” a Palestinian state; it manufactured one on the ruins of a British betrayal, Arab rejectionism, and European guilt over Jewish blood it did not save. The modern UN language of “illegal occupation of Palestinian land” is not some timeless legal truth—it’s the political afterlife of the 1939 White Paper, a British act of imperial self‑interest and guilt management that betrayed the Mandate, rewrote the legal frame, and then got laundered into UN rhetoric by voting blocs with their own agendas.
Declarations\\accusations DO NOT equal judicial proof anymore than Xtian ‘blood libels’. Sykes Picot served as the medium for Arab independence for many subsequent Arab states. The Palestine mandate predicated upon the Balfour Declaration. Israel post Independence, gave citizenship to its’ ’48 Arabs! The current UN recognition of Palestine without shame – a political maneuver. Readers! Ask yourself, how then does this pig’s ear transform into a silk purse without fraud dolled up as “international law” … No different from the ICC which unilaterally declares Bibi a war criminal! Israel did not sign the Rome Agreement?