“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires.”
Edward Said
ABSTRACT
This essay serves as both a reflection on and a prolegomenon to the author’s independent artistic undertaking for the Russian Pavilion at the LX Venice Biennale. Through the project Holier than Thou, the essay interrogates the entanglement of Western imperialism, contemporary warfare, and the financial interests sustaining both. The pavilion, conceptualized as a space for artistic freedom unburdened by institutional constraints, responds to the 2024 Biennale theme Foreigners Everywhere, while exploring personal alienation and disillusionment with global power dynamics.
Reacting to the pervasive influence of institutional and corporate propaganda, Holier than Thou juxtaposes the emptiness of political promises with the raw realities of artistic creation within contested spaces. The work critically examines the hypocrisy embedded in democratic imperialism, where cultural institutions and corporate entities perpetuate violence and suppression under a veneer of moral superiority. By reimagining the Russian Pavilion as a hybrid digital and physical platform, the project creates a space where the tensions between personal ethics, global politics, and artistic practice are brought into focus.
Through this lens, the essay investigates how art functions both as a critical mirror and as a battleground for negotiating complicity in political violence. It interrogates how global narratives of democracy and freedom obfuscate the material realities of war and economic hegemony. The Russian Pavilion, a symbolically charged foreign territory, becomes a critical space of reflection, confronting both Western imperialism and the artist’s complicity in a world structured by violence and moral contradictions. Ultimately, Holier than Thou underscores the precarious nature of artistic freedom in a world where cultural institutions are increasingly policed, commodified, and co-opted, yet remain essential sites for dissent and the re-imagining of societal structures.
KEYWORDS: Western imperialism, Institutional critique, Democratic imperialism, Artistic freedom, Venice Biennale 2024, Russian Pavilion, Curating as critique
IMAGES
Image Cover: From left to right, Lanfranco Aceti, We Bring You the Gift of Democracy, Regime Change, and Thank You Very Much Indeed, 2024. Carrara marble sculptures. Russian Pavilion, LX Venice Biennale.
CITATION
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE
A version of this essay is scheduled for publication.
Lanfranco Aceti, “Holier than Thou,” in The Architecture of Exhibitions, ed. Alessandro Melis (Routledge: FORTHCOMING).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With Gratitude
I wish to thank Professor Alessandro Melis for having created the space to speak freely.
