61. Biennale Arte – Alma Allen

Comunicato stampa

The American Arts Conservancy (AAC), is pleased to announce, in
collaboration with the U.S. Department of State, that Alma Allen will represent the United States at the 2026
Venice Biennale. Over the past three decades, Allen has created abstract biomorphic sculptures inspired by the
expansive landscapes and natural geological formations of the Americas, using natural materials sourced from
these lands. His exhibition, Alma Allen: Call Me the Breeze, on view May 9–November 22, 2026, at the United
States Pavilion in Venice, Italy, 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. The artist will create several new site-responsive sculptures, including
one for the U.S. Pavilion’s outdoor forecourt.

To make his work, Allen developed a hybrid process that combines preindustrial methods of carving and hand-
shaping with advanced technology, such as robotic sculpting. With a commitment to material authenticity, he

works in materials local to the Americas, including American walnut burl; Cantera verde volcanic rock; and
white Colorado Yule marble, a luminous stone used to construct several of our nation’s historic monuments,
including the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington
National Cemetery. Natural materials carry historical and cultural imports; Yule marble, for example, signifies
historical gravity and transcendence and can be used to foster understanding and to open a metaphorical
pathway for the future.
With these natural, earthbound materials as a starting point, Allen has built a body of sculptures that seem to
transform the nature of matter. In Alma Allen: Call Me the Breeze, viewers will encounter works in which the
strata of rough rock appear to have been smoothed through the passage of time, and solid bronze appears
liquid. 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.”
The U.S. Pavilion at the 61st International Venice Art Biennale will coincide with “America 250,” the United
States Semiquincentennial celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The 2026 U.S. Pavilion is organized by Commissioner Jenni Parido, founder of the American Arts
Conservancy, and curator Jeffrey Uslip.
“It is an honor to celebrate the American sculptor Alma Allen as the artist to represent the United States,” said
Jenni Parido. “Alma Allen embodies the qualities of America’s best and brightest; he is a self-taught American
success story, and the American Arts Conservancy is proud to share his work with audiences from around the
world at the next Venice Biennale.”
“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” said Uslip. “Alma Allen has spent the last thirty years creating forms that are
sculpturally captivating and materially grounded in the landscape of the Americas. As the exhibition’s title,
Call Me the Breeze, suggests, Alma Allen’s sculptures embrace a weightlessness and freedom of thought.”