US Pavilion Sculptures Could Be Stranded in Venice
The pavilion has no storage, and the Guggenheim Foundation, which maintains the building, has no space for the sculptures
The US Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Photo by Agostino Osio. Courtesy Alto Piano Studio and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
Alma Allen’s sculptures for this year’s US pavilion at the Venice Biennale may be stuck in Italy after the nonprofit mounting it fell $1 million short of its budget.
Jenni Parido, the pavilion’s commissioner, has written to donors citing an ‘urgent funding need’ to cover deinstallation and shipping, according to a letter seen by The New York Times. Her nonprofit, the American Arts Conservancy (AAC), has raised $1.4m against a budget of just under $2.5m. The 2024 US pavilion cost about $5m and the 2022 edition nearly $7m.
The biennale closes this month. The pavilion has no storage, and the Guggenheim Foundation, which maintains the building, has no space for the sculptures. The State Department, which gave a $375,000 grant, said it was not involved in fundraising.
Parido, a former Tampa pet-boutique owner with no professional arts experience, was appointed after the Trump administration scrapped the department’s selection guidelines on the recommendation of Erin Scavino, a close friend of Parido’s who also sits in the president’s inner circle and runs its Art in Embassies programme. The State Department said that Parido was selected through a review process.
Katy Siegel, an art historian who helped curate the 2017 pavilion, said ‘budgeting normally is very careful’.
The AAC did not respond to the New York Times’s questions about the works’ fate if the money is not raised.
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