Trump's Pick: Alma Allen, American Sculptor, Is Selected for Venice Biennale
The State Department announced on Monday that the American sculptor Alma Allen, now based in Mexico, would represent the United States at next year’s Venice Biennale, ending a chaotic process that had led some to fear that the United States would not find an artist to participate in the art world’s version of the Olympics.
Allen, 55, will exhibit nearly 30 sculptures in a show organized by the curator Jeffrey Uslip and titled “Alma Allen: Call Me the Breeze.” Allen’s selection was delayed significantly by an overhaul of the selection committee, by the earlier choice of another artist whose selection was ultimately withdrawn and by the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
In an interview, Allen said that he had not applied for the commission but that Uslip, whom he had never met, had called him in October to ask if he would accept the selection, one of the highest distinctions in the art world. Allen, who was raised in Utah, accepted, without hesitation, even as some in the art world warned him not to associate himself with a presidential administration that they see as hostile to the art world.
Most of what Allen will exhibit at the Venice Biennale, which will begin in May, will not be new work, but he does plan to cover the costs to create a few new sculptures, as he has throughout his career. The State Department, which typically provides only a small portion of the money needed to exhibit at the Venice Biennale, will cover the cost of shipping and other transportation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/arts/design/alma-allen-venice-biennale.html
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His work is "meh", IMHO.
Shocked that Trump went with someone now based in Mexico.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Believe me, I think this idea is a winner: “I can think of no one better to represent America than the president himself.” -- Andres Serrano
Trump Mausoleum Proposed by Andres Serrano for US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
by Francesca Aton
ArtNews, July 23, 2025
A new proposal for the the US pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale just dropped: This time, irreverent artist Andres Serrano is throwing his hat in the ring, proposing a mausoleum for the country’s current president Donald Trump.
Serrano began amassing a collection of thousands of Trump-signed and branded objects in 2019, with the purchase of a miniature chocolate wedding cake for $1,880 that was gifted to guests at Trump’s nuptials with current wife Melania in 2005. The artist has since spent more than $200,000 on the collection.
As such, Serrano’s US pavilion would present a multi-media portrait of the president. The project, titled The Game: All Things Trump, is also already a book, published in 2020 by Booth-Clibborn Editions. The angle of his Biennale proposal, however, arguably differs, with the compendium offered as a mausoleum—a nod not only to a past time, but to a very different version of Trump and America, which next year celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding.
In Italy, the work takes on added meaning, with a nod to those like the Mausoleum of Augustus erected for ancient Roman dictators not far from Venice in Rome.
Serrano’s proposal also involves the inclusion of his 2022 film Insurrection on Trump supporters’ storming of the US capitol on January 6, 2021, for which the artist spent months finding photographs and video footage from conservative social media platforms. It also offers an overview of archival and historical footage on US history.
Continues...
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/trump-mausoleum-andres-serrano-us-pavilion-venice-biennale-1234748051/
Using the new Donald J Trump Ballroom as a mausoleum could become the biggest and busiest urinal ever built in the world.
OP: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220778958