All posts tagged: Alma Allen

In Boston, Robert Lazzarini Will Show Works Intended for US Pavilion

In Boston, Robert Lazzarini Will Show Works Intended for US Pavilion

Published by Jenni Sidey

A Boston exhibition this fall will reveal works by New York–based artist Robert Lazzarini that were intended to represent the country at the hotly contested US Pavilion at the current Venice Biennale. The show, as yet untitled, opens on September 30 at Boston’s MassArt Art Museum (MAAM), at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and will allow the public to see works that employ the artist’s trademark distortions to comment on American symbolism.  The current US Pavilion is one of the most talked-about in art circles in recent memory, having been arranged by a newly formed organization headed up by a Donald Trump–supporting former pet food purveyor with no art world experience. The process that led to the selection of an artist departed from the customary procedure by which art curators and institutions, not allies of the US president, pitch candidates to represent the country in what’s sometimes called the art world Olympics. The pavilion ultimately went to Alma Allen. Related Articles But, how the US State Department, which oversees the selection process, got …

Alma Allen Accuses David Resnicow of Undermining His 2026 US Pavilion

Alma Allen Accuses David Resnicow of Undermining His 2026 US Pavilion

Published by Jenni Sidey

Artist Alma Allen has again accused art publicist David Resnicow of working against Allen’s controversial U.S. Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, after months of criticism surrounding the project. In an Instagram post published Monday afternoon, Allen wrote that “two of the three galleries that withdrew their support for my pavilion informed me that they did so on the advice of David Resnicow,” referring to the veteran art-world publicist whose firm has represented the US Pavilion six times before this year’s edition. Related Articles “I have never met Mr. Resnicow,” Allen wrote in the post “But his name came up frequently from individuals who told me he had warned them not to support this year’s American Pavilion. This included arts writers, museum directors, funders, curators, and two of the three galleries that withdrew support.” Allen’s post marks the second time he has publicly identified Resnicow by name. The first was in a New York Times article in March announcing that Allen had gained representation with the international gallery Perrotin after Kasmin and Mendes Wood DM, both of which …

Alma Allen’s US Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale Falls Flat

Alma Allen’s US Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale Falls Flat

Published by José Betancourt

The United States is in a sad state of affairs. That wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who reads or watches the news, or even just scrolls social media and skims the headlines. But you would also know it if you happened to walk by the US Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, where the American representative this year, Alma Allen, has installed five extremely unremarkable sculptures in front of the building, along with some 20 works inside. It’s a sharp turn from how the US Pavilion has looked the last couple of times around. The previous two artists to take over the pavilion, Simone Leigh (2022) and Jeffrey Gibson (2024), sought to radically transform the Palladian structure in the center of the Giardini, built in 1930. Despite their drastically different approaches, both artists sought to surface the history of colonialism and empire at the core of the United States’ founding and present. Related Articles That isn’t the case in 2026. As the US and international press have reported ad nauseam, the second Trump …

How Will the Venice Biennale Impact Alma Allen’s Market?

How Will the Venice Biennale Impact Alma Allen’s Market?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Controversy has swirled around the artist Alma Allen since he was announced as America’s representative at this year’s Venice Biennale, which opens to art professionals and press next week. The conversation has tended to highlight the compromised selection process under President Trump, with much of the scrutiny centered around the fact that a museum didn’t commission the pavilion, as is common. Instead, the commissioner this time is a newly created body called the American Arts Conservancy headed by Jenni Parido, who up until 2024 ran a boutique pet food lifestyle shop in Tampa, Florida, and entered Trump’s orbit though pet charity events held at Mar-a-Lago. After the announcement, Allen’s galleries, Olney Gleason and Mendes Wood DM dropped him, but a new, just as high-profile one, Perrotin, picked him up. Related Articles The question now is, what will the effect of the Biennale—and all its attendant drama—be on Allen’s market? “I love Alma,” Beth Rudin DeWoody, a longtime supporter, said. “I collect his work and I’m not at all happy with his controversy. I think art should just transcend all of that… [Venice] is a great opportunity for him. It’s a shame his galleries dropped …

Barbara Chase-Riboud on Why She Declined to Represent the US in Venice

Barbara Chase-Riboud on Why She Declined to Represent the US in Venice

Published by José Betancourt

As questions continue to swirl around Alma Allen‘s US Pavilion for this year’s Venice Biennale, sculptor Barbara Chase-Riboud revealed that she was also offered the opportunity to represent the country—and that she had declined it. News of Chase-Riboud’s decision to say no was first reported by the New York Times yesterday, in an extensive feature by Zachary Small on the rocky run-up to Allen’s choice, which came after the Trump administration removed language about diversity from the application materials. But the article did not quote Chase-Riboud on the matter until a feature on the pavilion that ran in the Financial Times today. Related Articles “Participating in the 61st Venice Biennale would have been splendid,” Chase-Riboud told journalist Julia Halperin. “Art is the only thing that proves that anything has ever happened in the world. For me, as a world citizen, this was not the moment.” Both papers, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, also reported that another 86-year-old artist, the photographer William Eggleston, had been offered the pavilion and that he, too, declined. Eggleston …

Alma Allen U.S. Pavilion Venice Biennale 2026 Selection Process Controversy

Alma Allen U.S. Pavilion Venice Biennale 2026 Selection Process Controversy

Published by José Betancourt

Alma Allen‘s pavilion for the United States at the 2026 Venice Biennale has become a proxy fight over politics, process, and cultural authority—questions the artist himself has little interest in adjudicating. “I don’t think my work is political in respect to party politics,” Allen said as he prepared his exhibition, adding that his more immediate concern was practical: “some of the pieces barely fit in the doorway.”  A report by the New York Times has drawn fresh attention to how the US Pavilion came together, after the State Department abandoned its long-standing selection model and handed control to a newly formed nonprofit with virtually no track record of mounting exhibitions.  Related Articles For decades, the US Pavilion followed a familiar script: museums would submit proposals to a panel of experts formed by the National Endowment of the Arts, with the panel having final say over the which proposal would win. This year, that system was scrapped. The State Department instead turned to the American Arts Conservancy, led by Jenni Parido, a Florida-based founder without museum experience, working with independent curator Jeffrey …

Pet Food Store Owner Behind US Pavilion in Venice—and More Art News

Pet Food Store Owner Behind US Pavilion in Venice—and More Art News

Published by José Betancourt

The Headline ANATOMY OF A PAVILION. The New York Times dug into the making of the forthcoming US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and found that its 37-year-old commissioner, Jenni Parido,  has no professional experience in the arts. She recently ran a luxury pet food store in Florida, setting her on an “unlikely path from selling venison nuggets and dried sardines to organizing a federally sponsored pavilion on a global stage,” according to the Times. Parido later picked Jeffrey Uslip, who made headlines a decade ago for a racially insensitive in St. Louis, to curate the pavilion. Artist Alma Allen ended up being named as the American representative, but not before others, including photographer William Eggleston and sculptor Barbara Chase-Riboud, reportedly bailed out first. “I don’t think my work is political in respect to party politics,” Allen told the Times, later adding: “I think that people will have to make a judgment for themselves.” Related Articles PENDANT POPS UP. A memento mori pendant that appears in a celebrated 1635 English family portrait has been discovered, reports the Guardian. The John Souch painting, Sir Thomas Aston at the Deathbed of His Wife and held by the Manchester …

Alma Allen, Artist Representing US at Venice Biennale, Joins Perrotin

Alma Allen, Artist Representing US at Venice Biennale, Joins Perrotin

Published by Jenni Sidey

Alma Allen, the sculptor chosen to represent the United States at this year’s edition of the Venice Biennale, has joined Galerie Perrotin, a blue-chip French gallery with locations in Paris, London, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Los Angeles. As ARTnews’s Maximilíano Durón and Sarah Douglas reported upon Allen’s selection in November, the artist was born in 1970, but has been based since 2017 in Tepoztlán, a town just outside of Cuernavaca and south of Mexico City. Prior to moving to Mexico, he was based in Joshua Tree, California. Allen is known for large-scale sculptures that are often made in stone, wood, and bronze, but he has also begun working a self-built robotic device to make his sculptures. Related Articles Prior to being taken on by Perrotin, Allen was represented by Olney Gleason and Mendes Wood DM, both of whom dropped the artist after Allen accepted the Biennale commission, according to the New York Times. In years past, Allen was represented by Blum & Poe and Kasmin, but both of those galleries closed last …

Who is Alma Allen, Trump’s Pick for the Venice Biennale?

Who is Alma Allen, Trump’s Pick for the Venice Biennale?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Following a fraught selection cycle, the US Department of State on Monday confirmed that Utah-born, Mexico-based sculptor Alma Allen will represent the United States at the 2026 Venice Biennale.  The prestigious exhibition opens next May, when scores of curators, collectors, and journalists descend on the lagoon city to judge not only the quality of art on display, but the politics communicated by each national pavilion at the world’s top international art event. In the context of the ideological re-weaving of arts and culture under President Trump, the choice of the US representative offers a prism through which to read his priorities, especially when this year’s guidelines were updated to include that proposals should “advance international understanding of American values by exposing foreign audiences to innovative and compelling works of art that reflect and promote American values.” Related Articles Who is Alma Allen? Born and raised in Herber City, Utah, in 1970, Allen lived for several years in Joshua Tree, California; and Tepoztlán, roughly 50 miles from Mexico City, where he has a studio complete with …