An outsider artist takes the world's biggest stage with the US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
U.S. artist Alma Allen, a self-taught sculptor from Utah who works in Mexico, has been selected to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale with his exhibition "Call Me the Breeze" at the U.S. Pavilion. The selection process was fraught and opaque, with institutions declining to bid for the commission due to concerns about administration politics after the open call removed diversity, equity and inclusion language in favor of promoting "American values." A prior proposal for artist Robert Lazzarini fell apart after its institutional sponsor backed out, and Allen's project was quickly assembled with the American Arts Conservancy as sponsor and Jeffrey Uslip as curator. Allen, who has lived outside the critical art world for three decades, created a bronze evil eye for the pavilion's exterior and a headless sheep sculpture as a self-portrait of an outsider.
