United States Pavilion to Open at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia With Landmark Solo Presentation by Alma Allen: Call Me the Breeze

The U.S. Pavilion will host an opening event on Wednesday, May 6 at 11 a.m., during the Biennale’s official opening week in Venice, inaugurating the 2026 exhibition curated by Jeffrey Uslip

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Call Me the Breeze
Commissioner: Jenni Parido; Curator: Jeffrey Uslip; Exhibitor: Alma Allen
Venue: Giardini

VENICE, Italy, May 04, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The United States Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia presents “Call Me the Breeze,” an expansive solo presentation by acclaimed American artist Alma Allen, curated by Jeffrey Uslip, and commissioned by the American Arts Conservancy in cooperation with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), with support from the Guggenheim Foundation. Widely regarded as one of the most influential recurring exhibitions in the world, La Biennale di Venezia convenes leading artists, curators, scholars, institutions, collectors, and international audiences from across the globe. The United States Pavilion remains among its most prominent and closely watched national presentations.

In Venice this year, Allen will transform the historic pavilion through a sweeping corpus of sculpture made of cast bronze, shaped American walnut burl, and a variety of carved stone including of Mexican onyx, Guatemalan green quartzite, Mexican black marble, and Persian travertine, as well as Colorado Yule marble, a luminous white stone that has been used to construct several of our nation’s historic monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Celebrated for a practice that merges natural form with architectural precision, Allen’s work feels at once ancient, contemporary, elemental, and deeply human.

The exhibition will position the Pavilion as a contemplative environment, championing art that favors deep time and eschews finite positions. Conceived specifically for Venice, the presentation invites audiences into a dialogue between permanence and transformation, intimacy and monumentality, trauma and rehabilitation, landscape and memory. Taken as a whole, “Call Me the Breeze” is a proposal to be our future selves in the present and explores the concept of elevation, both as a physical manifestation of form and as a symbol of self-realization.

Reflecting on the honor of being selected to represent the United States at the Biennale, Allen said the works invite viewers to participate in the act of communication and making meaning: “I see communication as one individual at a time engaging with the work while simultaneously experiencing their own moment of creation,” he reflected. “I feel like this combination happens each time a person offers their attention – and is willing to feel and decide for themselves what the work means.”

“Alma Allen’s biomorphic sculptures evoke the visceral realities of contemporary life and reveal the fragility and resilience of the human condition,” added Jeffrey Uslip, Curator of the 2026 U.S. Pavilion. “The expansive environments and landscapes in which Allen has lived and worked have shaped his points of view, developed his sculptural vocabulary, and informed how he moves through the world. This exhibition will offer an immersive encounter with an artist whose practice speaks to timeless questions of beauty, space, memory, and our relationship to the natural world.”

When asked how he hopes visitors might respond to his work at the Pavilion, Alma noted that he does not see the works as individual objects, but in relationship to one another and to other worlds and universes. “I work with my hands over and over and over again until I find the thing that I’m making in the thing. I’m often surprised by it, and I hope the visitors to the U.S. Pavilion can approach them with the same openness. I want them to have a shift where something new happens in the encounter itself.”

“Alma is one of the most singular artistic voices working today,” said Jenni Parido, Commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion and President of the American Arts Conservancy. “His work reflects extraordinary discipline, imagination, and sensitivity to material. We are proud to support this ambitious presentation and honored to bring an artist of this caliber to represent the United States in Venice.”

The exhibition will open to the public on May 9, 2026 and remain on view through November 22, 2026.

ABOUT ALMA ALLEN

Alma Allen is an American artist internationally recognized for sculptural works that unite gestural immediacy, refined craftsmanship, and material innovation. Working across bronze, marble, wood, stone, and cast materials, Allen’s practice has been exhibited widely in museums, institutions, and major collections worldwide. Allen is the first self-taught artist to represent the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

ABOUT JEFFREY USLIP

Jeffrey Uslip, the U.S. Pavilion curator, has organized solo exhibitions with some of the most innovative and challenging artists of our time. Uslip is a curator and museum leader known for organizing courageous and critically acclaimed exhibitions and advancing artist-centered programming across contemporary art institutions in the United States for more than three decades. Uslip’s landmark exhibition Hurvin Anderson: Backdrop traveled to the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, where it was shortlisted for the prestigious 2017 Turner Prize.

ABOUT THE AMERICAN ARTS CONSERVANCY

The American Arts Conservancy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving, promoting, and advancing the visual arts of the United States. Through cultural diplomacy, educational outreach, and stewardship, it supports the legacy of American artists at home and abroad while fostering dialogue across communities and generations.

ABOUT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE’S BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL & CULTURAL AFFAIRS

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) builds relationships between the people of the United States and other countries through academic, cultural, professional, and artistic exchange. Through international partnerships and public diplomacy initiatives, ECA advances mutual understanding and global collaboration.

MEDIA CONTACT

U.S. Media Relations, American Arts Conservancy
Madeline Michaelson: (616) 617-7800
Brian Hyland: (201) 410-4563
press@americanartsconservancy.org

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