Venice Biennial 2026 : Martin Puryear versus Alma Allen

 

Alma Allen

The American entry in the Venice Biennale is actually interesting this year. The Trump administration gave a big middle finger to the cultural elite by choosing a Florida pet shop owner to select a former museum curator whose career was torched by political correctness. 

 Let’s face it, the contemporary art world owns the American pavilion and this is the first time it’s ever been shut out. It would’ve been a great opportunity to have it curated by someone from a cowboy art museum or a contemporary mimetic gallery like Arcadia or Forum - genres that have been categorically excluded. 

The institutional definition of art - the only one that can consistently be applied in today’s artworld, privileges arguments based on authority. To challenge that authority attacks all who share it, so it’s hardly surprising that Jason Farago, art critic for the New York Times, took it personal, and gave it a comprehensive beat down 

 Here are some excerpts:

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The honor (or former honor) of representing the United States eventually went to Alma Allen, a competent but hardly compelling sculptor of bronze and marble plaques and curlicues. …….

The 2026 U.S. Pavilion offers a twinned sensation of outrage and exhaustion. The government's selection process has debased what was once a major stage for American art. Allen, on that stage, has declined to flatter his benefactors — but neither has he shown the rest of us that the concessions were worthwhile. The 20-odd sculptures here, ranging from a gourd of Mexican onyx to a stylized bronze of a boy clutching his legs, look fine enough for a South Beach hotel lobby. They do not offend, except in their inertness. Visitors may experience a numbness - am I feeling anything? do I even care?……..

An aesthetic critique.  The artist felt nothing, so neither can the viewer. I feel humor from the photos, but maybe that comes from the photographer.  Hotel lobby sounds about right- not necessarily a cheap one.

Biomorphic, talismanic, Brancusi for beginners (and a century late for that), these sculptures present some modest technical facility but no great thought. They are abstract-ish, but have no real faith in abstraction. They require no greater interpretation than the vocabulary children use to describe clouds: This one could be a snail, that one a cat, this one a tank. "Call Me the Breeze," the show is titled. Bronze may be heavy, but this is as insubstantial as air. 

This section begins with condescension and ends with an interesting appeal for an abstract art that needs sophisticated interpretation - presumably from art critics like himself.

National or cultural history had to be accounted for in a place like this. It'd be far better for everyone if we just did away with the unhelpful 1900s inheritance of these country-by-country displays. But if we have to have them, then an artist working within nationalist walls has no other choice than to work at the nexus of form and history. 

Why can't we just enjoy things? Because the form of a work of art is always situated. It has to be meaningful both on its own terms, through scale and shape and color and line, and simultaneously meaningful within an institutional framework. Nowhere is that double demand more urgent than in a national pavilion, and several American artists, notably Ed Ruscha and Martin Puryear, have done that with distinction when they represented the U.S. Other artists, mistaking the assignment, have fallen into point-and-click celebration and moralism; the last Biden-stamped American pavilion, at which Jeffrey Gibson displayed garish totems and punching bags with didactic slogans like "We Want To Be Free," 

Yes - “why can’t we simply enjoy things?”  99 percent of all art is in private collections, and enjoyment is usually the reason given.     It’s quite proper that art “fit within the institutional framework” of whatever institution that displays it - but if that institution is public, can't all of us participate in the debate? Especiallly populist politicians who can claim to speak for a voting majority.

All of the artists invited to Venice since 2016 chose racial or ethnic identity as the theme of their works. In other words, they were "woke"

Jeffrey Gibson.  2024. American Indian 

Simone Leigh.  2022 African American Woman identity (2020 was cancelled)

Martin Puryear 2018. African American slavery and liberation

Mark Bradford. 2016. African American diaspora identity.

But any putative inner exile is hard to square with the fact that a good fraction of these silly things used to sit on the median of Park Avenue in New York, sprucing up a business thoroughfare like so much 1970s "plop art." So the apter and sadder interpretation is that these are precisely what they look like: decorative baubles, nonchalant about form and situation, offering a perfectly flattering reflection to any aesthete or authoritarian gazing at their polished surfaces. 

“Plop art” sounds pretty disgusting - but the Wikipedia entry gave the following piece by  Richard Serra as a prime example, and he won the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale in 2001. 

 

Richard Serra

In its original usage - as “plunk art” - it referred to abstract public sculpture that had no obvious meaning or connection to the surrounding urban space. Like it had been randomly plunked down there.

BTW - here’s the verbiage that Allen’s gallery attached to that Park Avenue installation:


Psychologically charged and compulsively expressive, Alma Allen’s works evoke a curiosity regarding the life of objects and the ways in which form and material can circumnavigate the utility of language. Known for his distillation of diverse organic references, the artist’s works simultaneously invite and resist classification.

BTWII : When the Times announced Allen’s selection by a “Florida pet shop owner”, they did not mention his 2025  Park Avenue installation and only showed pictures of his hand sized work with the caption:  "For much of his career, Allen made small sculptural objects before transitioning to larger-scale pieces".  The half-truth is not good journalism.

Since Farago compared Allen with Puryear, I have shown their contributions below:

Here’s what Allen brought to  the American Pavilion:

 

Here’s what Puryear had made for it  eight years earlier:

It does seem that Allen eases tension while Puryear creates it. The one belongs in a shopping mall, the other on a university campus. But is one any more American, aesthetically intense, or politically independent than the other? 

 Visually, the outstanding feature of each seems to be the surprise of unfamiliarity - and that can vanish after one viewing. At which point, you might just as well be looking at the promotional photo for a nice yellow garden hose. 

But Puryear’s titles did relate to the history of African American oppression, so it was Woke, while Allen is not.

Farago responded with all of the scorn a meritocratic elite may feel towards those beneath them.

Contemporary Landscape painting found online

 

Alex Kanevsky

So vibrant. 

He loves to play with pictorial space just as Cezanne did.

Francisco  Escalera Gonzalez, b. 1965, Spain

Gorgeous luminosity

Francisco  Escalera  Gonzalez

String sense of being there,

and being ready to go back home

Francisco  Escalera  Gonzalez, Sunset at the Old Hospital of the Holy Spirit, Nuremberg, 2020, 59x59 “

Can’t get enough of this guy.

I want to go deep into this vision and never come out.

Impressionism has its joys, but Dutch realism is something else again.

T. Allen Lawson

Sue Fawthrop, 6” x 6”

Drunken Sword Calligraphy

 

Molly Zuckerman Hartung

violent, unpredictable, improvisational, execution loose but composition tight. Perfection is sacrificed to freedom and defiance. Its punching upward, not down.

Amy Sillman

Liliane Tomasko

Amanda Carol

Cora Cohen

Bradley Walker Tomlin

Max Frintrop

Less improvisation, but more danger

Monica Tiulescu

Wanton layering - like graffiti on a train car.

Gis Mari

A nice collage of painting and human dressed in black.

 Santiago Parra, b. 1986, Columbia, 66 x 43

Nasty and funky

Brice Marden, Cold Mountain Studies

Contemporary Figurative Painting found online

 

ONGOING as I find them

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Jenna Gribbon

Such a gift for composition 

She must 

 see the world as painting non- stop

Jenna Gribbon

And so much joy in her youthful body

(Presumably a self portrait)

Jenna Gribbon

Jacob Collins

What a projection of personality 

of a person you would like to know.

Collins speaks about the lack of institutional patronage 

for  "authentic American painting" on Youtube, 

to which i dared append a comment.

Henry Taylor,  72 x 96, 2016

The times they ain’t changing fast enough

Most of his paintings aren’t this good.

Presumably, this subject moved him.

Iian Faulkner, Leaving Venice, 2020

The elegant woman and the expensive luggage make a fine duet

on the canals of Venice

Alex Kanevsky

A bit more about the  painting than the woman.

I guess she’s singing in the tub

Alex Krause, 2012,  20 x 28

Depicting an aesthetic response to a painting,

and I feel just like her as I look at this one.

So right in so many ways.

Sunday morning at the Art Institute of Chicago

 

With two new special exhibits, it was time to visit the museum before my membership expires.

I was going to review them, but as it turned out, neither were that remarkable.

On the other hand, this piece from the permanent collection really grabbed me:

Equestrian Figure Late 12th-early 15th century Bankoni Bougouni region, Mali 

Terracotta 

Ada Turnbull Hertle Endowment, 1987.314.

Seated on a bridled horse, this bearded equestrian has an elaborate hairstyle, facial scarifications, and jewelry that reflect wealth and status. The rider's sheathed knife further indicates the key role that warriors on horseback played in expanding West Africa's great empires from the 1roos to the early 160os: Quick-moving cavalry could maintain control over vast territories. Traveling merchants who served these powerful states traded goods and ideas with the Mediterranean world, the Middle East, and Asia. Figures in this style have been unearthed in Bankoni, a village near Mali's capital, since the 1950s.

Part of a five piece set, it stands alone quite well.

Presumably it’s been in the African gallery for decades, but I just can’t  remember it.

Stick figures are like tubes of energy,

just actual wooden twigs,

and can be quite delightful when bent, proportioned, and placed just so.

I’m guessing that this way of handling clay

followed a way of twisting, cutting, and arranging natural pieces of wood.

Nothing shows more inner power than a tree branch.

This guy has as much motion as a static object can have.

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Korean exhibition

These two Bodhisattvas from the 7th Century 

All these pieces come from  the formerly private collection of the Chairman of the Samsung Group.

Overall, it’s disappointing.

Pieces were probably acquired for historical rather than aesthetic value.

The above, however, appear to have both.

So gentle and lyrical.

Kim Kichang,  1914-2001, 1955

Bold and fun …. but nothing more.

Buncheong ware, c. 1500

12th C. Celadon 

Open doors to infinite nothingness.

Yi Haeung (1820-1898), Orchids

Statesman in the royal family and father of Korea’s last king,

as well as very adept artist.

Especially like the goofiness of this piece.

The contrast of loose and tight.

Hard and soft.

Kim Whanki 김환기, I9I3-1974 Echo of Mountain  산울림 I9-I1-73#307 1973 Oil on canvas , 104”x84”

Kim Whanki was one of the first abstract artists in Korea, ushering in a new chapter in modern Korean art in the 193os. Throughout his career, he explored diverse forms of abstraction, culminating in his Echo series in which he painted dense dots to create immersive surfaces. While living in New York from 1964 until his death, Kim longed for his home country and often reflected on his cultural heritage. He found solace in the repetitive act of adding dots to canvas, and he likened blue to the sky and ocean of Korea. 

Reminds me of a show by 

Young-il Ahn (1934-2020)

that came to Chicago a few years ago.

Both artists moved to America and made meditative surfaces.

Doesn’t really play well in a noisy museum.

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 The Matisse Show

Matisse : The Horse, The Rider, and The Clown,  194

A dynamic design that races out to the corners.

And what a  nice setting for the colors.

They are the stars of this show.

This is the entire series of prints now called “Jazz” , designed with pieces of cut paper.   It’s so much easier to see them online where a backlit screen does them justice. 

 If you disagree, you can always see them whenever you want in the museum’s Print and Drawing room.  Nothing here was borrowed from other collections.

So this exhibit mostly serves as an inexpensive way to appeal to a larger and likely younger audience 

Here are the others that I like:

The Circus

The Swimmer in the Tank

Icarus

Love the contrasting legs - and arms too.

There’s something so classical about taking joy from someone else’s misfortune. 

The French text is translated as:

“Such a free moment. Shouldn’t we also make a big plane trip for young people who have finished their studies.”

The old French modernist was making joyful figurative art at the same time some young Americans were abstract expressing confusion and despair.

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On the way to the Matisse, I ran into this in Gunuslaus Hall:

Raqib Shaw : Paradise Lost

Detail

I reviewed it  "here" 

 The cosmic spectacle certainly captured my attention - like Thomas Cole’s “The Course of Empire” - but it’s too painful to ever want to see again.  

At 1200 square feet, it’s  the largest piece in the entire museum.

But still it felt claustrophobic and I badly needed fresh air.

  

Finally, I had to visit the great Rodin standing figures above the main stairway. I’ve recently been studying contrasting accounts of “the father of modern sculpture”, and posted the photos taken at the very end of this post.