Alma Allen Offers a Quiet Vision in Venice—Even as Questions Swirl Around the U.S. Pavilion

Alma Allen‘s much-anticipated exhibition for the U.S. Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale has finally opened its doors. The Utah-born sculptor’s offering is markedly pared-down compared to the bombastic interventions of his recent predecessors, though it has its own charm and whimsy. Still, looming questions about the show’s mysterious organizers remain unanswered.

The exhibition, “Call Me the Breeze,” hurriedly produced over just a few months, is a riposte to the oft-repeated claims that Allen’s work is purely formal or that it has nothing to say about our current moment. Throughout the central courtyard and the pavilion’s five galleries, the artist has grouped new work with old to weave a narrative about conflict, mourning, and transcendence that is inspired by Hieronymus Bosch‘s (c. 1505–15), on view at the nearby Galleria dell’Accademia.

If this overarching narrative feels a bit cobbled together, as it no doubt was, Allen’s descriptions of apparently abstract works convincingly bring them to life. One molten, coiled mass of bronze does resemble a cat, now that he mentioned it. The richly patina-ed wall at which the cat gazes, could, indeed, be a full moon in the night’s sky.

Offering such a rigid explanation of his art does not come naturally to Allen, who names all his works But when I met him at the pavilion on Tuesday, he was openly wary about the risks of leaving this particular exhibition open to interpretation.

“This is the first time in 30 years that I’ve felt the need to explain myself,” Allen said. “I think there’s been a bit of confusion about the whole thing. To some people, everything is political.”

A Controversial Commission

Allen has been on the defensive since accepting the invitation to represent the U.S. in Venice last October. Though it is undoubtedly one of the greatest honors an American artist can receive, the State Department’s insistence that proposals “reflect and promote American values” while not promoting DEI initiatives rang alarm bells for other artists, including William Eggleston and Barbara Chase-Riboud, who both turned down the offer.

Allen has mainly met criticisms of his choice to participate with bemusement. He explained that he has long enjoyed a certain remove from contemporary American discourse, having moved to Mexico in 2017, during President Trump‘s first term. “I don’t understand the stress of being there,” he said of his homeland.

A sense of unease surrounding the pavilion this year has been amplified by the fact that, exceptionally, it was commissioned by the American Arts Conservancy (AAC), a seemingly secretive organization that only formed last July. As my colleague Ben Davis noted, its executive director, Jenni Parido, was previously founder of a pet food company in Tampa, Florida, from 2014 until 2023. The AAC has made few public statements and these have tended to be vacuous, only adding to ambiguity that surrounds its aims and motivations.

Allen was keen to emphasize how little involvement the AAC has had in his exhibition. “There was no direction,” he said, revealing that he chose all the works and decided the exhibition’s themes, adding that the group never asked him what the show was about. “They still haven’t had a walkthrough.” Throughout our interview, he never mentioned Jeffrey Uslip, the exhibition’s official curator and a member of the AAC’s advisory council.

Though Allen views this hands-off approach as “fine and kind of appropriate,” it is surprising. When I reached out to the AAC to clarify Uslip’s role in the exhibition, they did not respond to the question directly but claimed representatives had been “on site” earlier in the day. They enclosed a program for the opening ceremony on May 6, during which both Parido and Uslip are scheduled to speak.

The program is also surprising. It does not feature Allen, who did not appear to be well-informed of the plan when we met just hours earlier. “I don’t know when the ceremony is,” he told a visitor who approached him during our conversation. “But you will be celebrated,” she said. “I may not even be here,” Allen replied with a laugh.

It is unclear how to read this apparent misalignment between Allen and the AAC. The organization has been consistently cagey, initially offering an interview with Uslip before ceasing to reply when I did not agree to show them a draft of this article so they could “better understand the angle.” The request came after I asked for clarification on the involvement, this year, of the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation, which manages the pavilion.

I never did receive clarification, but the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation is listed among the exhibition’s sponsors. The AAC, which has been crowdfunding to cover the exorbitant expense of planning a pavilion, also listed several prominent Republican donors, including the influential art collectors John and Amy Phelan.

A Pavilion That Resists Easy Meaning

At the pavilion preview, Allen was in a cheerful, laidback mood, though he conceded that he had been on the receiving end of a few “scowls.” They were small fry compared to some of the more serious backlash he has experienced in recent months, most notably being dropped by his two galleries, Mendes Wood and Olney Gleason, after ignoring their advice to turn down the commission.

Allen’s new gallerist, Emmanuel Perrotin, whose blue-chip Perrotin gallery boasts nine international outposts, dropped in for a walkthrough in the afternoon. “People were ready to destroy any artist who agreed to do [the pavilion],” he told me afterwards. “It’s very unfair. [Allen] is a very nice person and not a representative of MAGA culture at all.”

“Just haters try to make a big deal about this story,” he added. He clarified that he had been in conversations with Allen before he was invited to exhibit at the Biennale.

Of 10 new works on display, many are wall hangings, a new venture for Allen who is applying acids to a metal ground using gestures reminiscent of painting. One of these pieces, a response to the mountainous landscape near his rural Tepoztlán studio, was also partly informed by the half-memory of watching out for UFOs during a magic mushroom trip. Allen joked that the inspiration for some his works doesn’t always suit being over-explained. “Should I write that on a wall?” he said.

Some of the earliest works on show—a dimpled carving into burl, from 2014, and a mushroom cloud formed of Persian travertine, from 2016—are among the strongest. More obviously figurative compositions, including humans produced in glimmering strokes of bronze, will likely prove more divisive among critics. The show’s worthy centerpiece is a towering “ray of light” that gracefully fills the pavilion’s rotunda.

Allen’s insistence that he is “not a propagandist” could be seen as evasive, given the broader political context of the exhibition. But, as he lights up with excitement talking about his passion for the “quasi-religious,” spiritual dimensions of physics, or his sense that “the entire structure of our universe is one consciousness,” the open-ended, resolutely undidactic nature of his practice begins to make more sense.

After all, the artist long ago distanced himself from his strict Mormon upbringing to become a self-taught artist. It is no big surprise that he would embrace curiosity as a guiding philosophy.

“I don’t have an idea I’m trying to force someone to believe at all. If I did, I would be yelling at people to change their behavior,” Allen joked, “but I don’t.”