US SCULPTURES AMID CONTROVERSY AT THE VENICE BIENNALE

With no clear funding in place just ten days before its opening, the United States Pavilion presented the work of sculptor Alma Allen (Utah, United States, 1970) at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The show, titled Call Me the Breeze, "explores the concept of elevation, both as a physical manifestation of form and as a symbol of collective optimism and self-realization," according to the Biennale di Venezia Foundation.

The financing of the US project did not follow the same model as previous editions. Unlike the numerous sponsors who publicly backed Jeffrey Gibson's 2024 pavilion — among them the Ford and Mellon foundations — no organization or individual declared any direct funding ties to Allen's exhibition. According to Hyperallergic, the US government contributed $375,000, but the pavilion's total cost far exceeded that amount: Simone Leigh's 2022 pavilion cost an estimated $7 million, while Gibson's exceeded $5 million. To bridge the gap, the American Arts Conservancy (AAC), the nonprofit organization overseeing the project, raised funds through its website, where anyone could donate a minimum of $100.

Allen's selection was equally unconventional. According to Hyperallergic, the State Department — which took over the selection process following Trump's budget cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts — imposed restrictions on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and required proposals to promote "American exceptionalism." The first pair chosen, sculptor Robert Lazzarini and curator John Ravenal, never came to fruition after a funding agreement with a university collapsed. In November 2025, curator Jeffrey Uslip reached out directly to Allen — without the artist having submitted a formal proposal, as tradition dictates — and Allen accepted quickly, despite never having met Uslip before. The decision came at a cost: his two representing galleries, Olney Gleason and Mendes Wood DM, asked him to turn down the commission and, when he refused, dropped him from their rosters. Even so, two weeks before the opening, curator Jeffrey Uslip told CNN: "This is the smoothest exhibition I've curated in 30 years."

Allen's abstract biomorphic sculptures are inspired by the natural landscapes of the Americas. The work combines preindustrial carving and hand-shaping methods with advanced technology. The artist uses local materials such as American walnut burl and Cantera verde volcanic rock to create a body of work that "highlights the alchemical transformation of matter: the strata of rough rock appear smoothed through the passage of time," says the Biennale di Venezia.

For Allen, "the sculptures are often in the act of doing something: they are going away, or leaving, or interacting with something invisible. 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," he shared on social media in conversation with Perrotin. Call Me the Breeze seeks to champion allocentric art and embody a state of alterity, weightlessness, and freedom of thought.