[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2721807.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tAs questions continue to swirl around Alma Allen\u2018s US Pavilion for this year\u2019s Venice Biennale, sculptor Barbara Chase-Riboud revealed that she was also offered the opportunity to represent the country\u2014and that she had declined it.<\/p>\n
\n\tNews of Chase-Riboud\u2019s decision to say no was first reported by the New York Times<\/em> yesterday, in an extensive feature by Zachary Small on the rocky run-up to Allen\u2019s choice, which came after the Trump administration removed language about diversity from the application materials. But the article did not quote Chase-Riboud on the matter until a feature on the pavilion that ran in the Financial Times<\/em> today.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cParticipating in the 61st Venice Biennale would have been splendid,\u201d Chase-Riboud told journalist Julia Halperin. \u201cArt is the only thing that proves that anything has ever happened in the world. For me, as a world citizen, this was not the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBoth papers, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, also reported that another 86-year-old artist, the photographer William Eggleston, had been offered the pavilion and that he, too, declined. Eggleston has not publicly commented.<\/p>\n \n\tChase-Riboud is widely known for large-scale sculptures combining hard bronze elements with soft materials such as silk. Often, her abstract sculptures are named after Black figures throughout history, from Sally Hemings to Malcolm X.<\/p>\n \n\tShe had been given the offer to do the pavilion in Venice by its commissioner, the American Arts Conservancy. That organization is a nonprofit that was founded in 2025 by Jenni Parido, who does not have a large presence within the art world. As Ben Davis first reported last year in Artnet News<\/em>, prior to leading the American Arts Conservancy, Parido operated a pet food supply store in Tampa, Florida.<\/p>\n \n\tAt least one other artist has said he was offered the pavilion, too. Sculptor Robert Lazzarini previously stated that his proposal was selected, but that the invitation was later taken away from him amid what he described as \u201cbureaucracies failing to mesh.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAllen told the Financial Times<\/em> that he and curator Jeffrey Uslip had faced no pushback during the creation of their pavilion, which will open in May along with the rest of the Biennale. \u201cNo one has told me what to make in any circumstance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tSome, including ARTnews<\/em>, have questioned whether Allen\u2019s work is an appropriate fit to represent the US as it stands right now. Jeff Poe, cofounder of Blum & Poe, a now defunct gallery that represented Allen, told the Financial Times<\/em> that the artist\u2019s pavilion is likely to have \u201cvanilla, modernist, lovely work that doesn\u2019t speak to anything that\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAllen has brushed off that allegation, telling the New York Times<\/em>, \u201cI don\u2019t think my work is political in respect to party politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/barbara-chase-riboud-declined-us-pavilion-venice-biennale-1234782052\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2721807.jpg?w=1024″] As questions continue to swirl around Alma Allen\u2018s US Pavilion for this year\u2019s Venice Biennale, sculptor Barbara Chase-Riboud revealed that she was also offered the opportunity to represent the country\u2014and that she had declined it. News of Chase-Riboud\u2019s decision to say no was first reported by the New York Times yesterday, in […]<\/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-1897289","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\/1897289","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=1897289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1897289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1897289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1897289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}