[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-Portrait-of-Alma-Allen.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tAlma Allen, the sculptor chosen to represent the United States at this year\u2019s edition of the Venice Biennale, has joined Galerie Perrotin, a blue-chip French gallery with locations in\u00a0Paris, London, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Dubai, and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs ARTnews<\/em>\u2019s Maximil\u00edano Dur\u00f3n and Sarah Douglas reported upon Allen\u2019s selection in November, sources said he already was in talks to join Perrotin. <\/p>\n \n\tAllen was born in 1970, but has been based since 2017 in Tepoztl\u00e1n, a town just outside of Cuernavaca and south of Mexico City. Prior to moving to Mexico, he was based in Joshua Tree, California. Allen is known for large-scale sculptures that are often made in stone, wood, and bronze, but he has also begun working a self-built robotic device to make his sculptures.<\/p>\n \n\tPrior to being taken on by Perrotin, Allen was represented by Olney Gleason and Mendes Wood DM, both of whom dropped the artist after Allen accepted the Biennale commission, according to the New York Times<\/em>. In years past, Allen was represented by Blum & Poe and Kasmin, but both of those galleries closed last year. (Kasmin was transitioned into Olney Gleason last August.)<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe see him as an artist who has had a quiet and consistent practice over many years,\u201d Rowena Chiu, a director at Perrotin\u2019s London gallery, told the New York Times<\/em>. \u201cHe comes from a family without means \u2014 he is a completely self-made person. He feels that art is something that should be able to transcend current politics.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tChiu joined Perrotin last fall to lead the gallery\u2019s new London location, a 3,800-square-foot space in Claridge\u2019s, a five-star hotel in Mayfair.<\/p>\n \n\tAllen was an unusual pick for the American Pavilion, given his lack of high-profile museum exhibitions or commissions. He has had two major museum exhibitions: in 2023, at the Museo Anahuacalli in Mexico City, and in 2018 at the Palm Springs Art Museum in California. His CV, ARTnews<\/em> previously reported, listed five museums as owning his work, including the Palm Springs Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In addition, his selection has been supported by the American Arts Conservancy, a Florida nonprofit recently established to oversee the exhibition.<\/p>\n \n\tAccording to the Times<\/em>, Allen is bringing seven or eight new artworks to the Biennale, alongside a selection of older works that he has described as \u201cabstract expressions of his personal history.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe US Pavilion has been particularly fraught due to the Trump Administration\u2019s attacks on the arts and arts funding over the last year. The administration has cut federal funding to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, cancelled grants, and cut the workforce. He has also repeatedly tried to pressure museums, including the Smithsonian Institution, to change the content of its exhibitions\u2014to purge all \u201canti-American ideology\u201d\u2014and to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.<\/p>\n \n\tAllen told the Times<\/em> that he experienced an \u201corchestrated campaign\u201d by art dealers, curators, and museum directors to convince him to pull out of the Biennale commission, and specifically pointed at David Resnicow, whose communications firm counts many major institutions as clients, including past US Pavilions. (Resnicow denied the claim, and said he had raised concerns about the American Arts Conservancy\u2019s ability to successfully \u201crealize the project.\u201d)<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI love the difficult context,\u201d Allen said. \u201cHonestly, it makes the work more interesting. If I could choose, I would always find a bit of a fraught situation to do work in.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tPerrotin has said it will provide logicial and operational support for the US Pavilion. Allen\u2019s first show with the gallery is scheduled for this fall in Paris. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/alma-allen-gallery-representation-perrotin-venice-biennale-1234776720\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1-Portrait-of-Alma-Allen.jpg?w=1024″] Alma Allen, the sculptor chosen to represent the United States at this year\u2019s edition of the Venice Biennale, has joined Galerie Perrotin, a blue-chip French gallery with locations in\u00a0Paris, London, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Dubai, and Los Angeles. As ARTnews\u2019s Maximil\u00edano Dur\u00f3n and Sarah Douglas reported upon Allen\u2019s selection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1818821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1818821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1818821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1818821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1818821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}