Confirming earlier reports that his selection had been delayed by the 43-day United States government shutdown, the US State Department on Monday (24 November) confirmed that the Utah-born, Mexico-based sculptor Alma Allen will represent the US at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Allen’s US Pavilion exhibition, Alma Allen: Call Me the Breeze (9 May-22 November 2026), is being organised by Jenni Pardo, the pavilion’s commissioner and the founder of the organisation American Arts Conservancy, and the independent curator Jeffrey Uslip.
A state department announcement makes clear that Allen’s exhibition will align with US president Donald Trump’s “America first” ideology, stating: “It will present artworks that highlight Allen’s alchemical transformation of matter and explore the concept of ‘elevation’, both as a physical manifestation of form and as a symbol of collective optimism and self-realization, furthering the Trump Administration’s focus on showcasing American excellence.”
Alma Allen, Not Yet Titled, 2023, bronze Courtesy the artist
The artist's exhibition will be anchored by his trademark large-scale sculptures, in which materials like wood, marble, volcanic rock and bronze are treated through various age-old and cutting-edge processes to evoke contrasting materials. “The sculptures are often in the act of doing something: they are going away, or leaving or interacting with something invisible,” Allen said in a statement. “Even though they seem static as objects, they are not static in my mind. In my mind, they are part of a much larger universe.”
The exhibition will feature around 30 sculptures, including a series of new site-specific works Allen will create, one of which will be installed outdoors in the forecourt of the US Pavilion.
Artist Alma Allen working on a sculpture Courtesy the artist
“Alma Allen’s signature sculptural vocabulary brings the art historical legacies of biomorphism into our present; Allen’s work functions as sculptural ciphers: each sculpture, decisively Not Yet Titled, is in a conceptual state of becoming,” Uslip said in a statement (emphasis his). “Alma Allen has spent the last 30 years creating forms that are sculpturally captivating and materially grounded in the landscape of the Americas.”
Parido added, in a statement: “Alma Allen embodies the qualities of America’s best and brightest; he is a self-taught American success story.”
The 2026 Venice Biennale will coincide with celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States on 4 July 1776, which have been a focus of the Trump administration as it has sought to slash federal arts funding and redirect grant monies toward related projects like the “Garden of American Heroes”.
Alma Allen, Not Yet Titled, 2014, walnut Courtesy the artist
Allen, who is based in Tepoztlán, Mexico, was previously represented by Kasmin, though since that gallery has closed he does not appear to currently have formal representation. Olney Gleason, the gallery formed by some alumni of Kasmin, does not include him on its roster. He told The New York Times that he had previously been represented by Olney Gleason and the Brazilian gallery Mendes Wood DM, but that both dropped him after he accepted the US Pavilion invitation.
Prior to his selection to represent the US in Venice (after a previous proposal involving the sculptor Robert Lazzarini reportedly collapsed), Allen had a high-profile public art installation along Park Avenue in Manhattan last spring. He was featured in the 2014 Whitney Biennial and has shown at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut and the Museo Anahuacalli in Mexico City. His works are in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Palm Springs Art Museum.
The US Pavilion has provided a platform for some of the country’s best-known contemporary artists, including Jeffrey Gibson (2024), Simone Leigh (2022), Martin Puryear (2019), Mark Bradford (2017), Joan Jonas (2015), Sarah Sze (2013), Allora & Calzadilla (2011), Bruce Nauman (2009), Félix González-Torres (2007), Ed Ruscha (2005) and Fred Wilson (2003).