{"id":275435,"date":"2025-11-06T15:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T15:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/275435\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T15:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T15:59:11","slug":"us-pavilion-at-venice-biennale-uncertain-after-proposal-falls-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/275435\/","title":{"rendered":"US Pavilion at Venice Biennale Uncertain After Proposal Falls Through"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe United States Pavilion at the upcoming Venice Biennale is in a precarious position after a proposal by artist Robert Lazzarini and independent curator John Ravenal fell through, according to a report<\/a> in the Washington Post.<\/p>\n

\n\tRavenal had received an email and a phone call in early September from the US State Department, which handles the calls for proposals for the American contribution to the Biennale, informing him that their proposal had been selected.<\/p>\n

\n\tRavenal and Lazzarini collaborated together on the artist\u2019s first institutional solo exhibition, at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond in 2003. They found an institutional partner in the University of South Florida\u2019s Contemporary Art Museum, which mounted a two-person exhibition for Lazzarini in 2019, and submitted their proposal.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"VENICE,<\/p>\n

\n\tBut negotiations between USF and the State Department reportedly collapsed in late September, just before a government shutdown. In an interview with the Post, Ravenal said he believes that this was a case of \u201ctwo bureaucracies failing to mesh,\u201d not an example of ideological disagreement. Ultimately, USF declined to sign the contract. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe State Department declined to comment to the Post. ARTnews\u2019s requests for comment from the State Department and USF were not immediately answered.<\/p>\n

\n\tLazzarini declined to comment to ARTnews, directing the query to Ravenal, who did not respond by press time.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to the Post, Althea Johnson, a USF spokesperson, said that \u201cthe University of South Florida is honored that our proposal was selected to represent the United States,\u201d but that university was \u201cnot able to accept the grant from the U.S. Department of State to participate\u201d for \u201ca number of factors,\u201d including the shortened timeline and the financial obligation required to realize the exhibition.<\/p>\n

\n\tRavenal and Lazzarini submitted their proposal over the summer after reading a piece in Vanity Fair<\/a> that called into question the status of the US Pavilion. The article also noted that there had been the State Department\u2019s call for proposals had added language this year that submissions should highlight \u201cworks of art that reflect and promote American values\u201d and that \u201c[foster] peaceful relations between the United States and other nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPer the Post, this year\u2019s US Pavilion also faced another significant change. The winning proposal has historically been selected by Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions, which is assembled by the National Endowment for the Arts and US Department of State, via a call for proposals.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the Trump administration\u2019s overhauls to the federal government caused the NEA to exclude itself the selection process, which was handled entirely by the State Department. An NEA spokesperson told the Post that the organization did not participate because of the \u201ccurrent time constraints and staffing transitions at both agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tArtist Andres Serrano<\/a> and far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin<\/a> have publicly announced their proposals for the US Pavilion, though it\u2019s unclear if they actually submitted them via the application portal.<\/p>\n

\n\tProducing the American Pavilion every two years is a costly endeavor. The US government provides a grant of only $375,000, though the exhibition often requires several million dollars for its completion. (About a third of those funds, $125,000, is earmarked for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, which maintains the Pavilion.) The 2024 edition by Gibson had a budget of around $5 million, while Leigh\u2019s 2022 pavilion cost some $7 million, according<\/a> to the New York Times. Per the Post, Lazzarini\u2019s budget would have been $5 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the curator, Ravenal would have been primarily responsible for raising those funds, which would have been difficult, given the short lead time and the fact that an announcement wasn\u2019t forthcoming. (Ravenal was previously the executive director of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Massachusetts and curator of modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.)<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce USF had agreed to be the institutional partner, however, the grant contract made the university liable for around $4.75 million, the amount not provided by the State Department. That contract had to be signed in order for Ravenal to tell donors that the proposal had won and for him to begin fundraising, but, per the Post, USF wanted a list of donor pledges ahead of signing the contract.<\/p>\n

\n\tLazzarini would have been an unusual pick for the American Pavilion, as the chosen artist is often someone more high-profile than him, with a lengthier CV. Recent US representatives include blue-chip artists such as Jeffrey Gibson, Simone Leigh, Mark Bradford, Joan Jonas, and Ed Ruscha.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to the VMFA and USF exhibitions, the CV on his website, which was last updated in 2021, lists solos at the Mint Museum in Charlotte (in 2018), the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas (2011), the FLAG Art Foundation in New York (2010), and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut (2009).<\/p>\n

\n\tHe has featured in a number of group exhibitions at both institutions, like the Tang Teaching Museum & Art Gallery and Peabody Essex Museum, and commercial galleries, such as the Hole and Marlborough Chelsea, over the years. The most notable of these is the 2002 Whitney Biennial.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Post report provided several details into what Lazzarini\u2019s US Pavilion would have looked like. It would have filled the Neoclassical building with objects related to US nationhood, including artworks based on American flags, a sculpture based on a George Washington statue, and a sculpture based on a Civil War canon, all realized via the artist\u2019s signature style of mathematical distortion. A large-scale sculpture based on a Civil War era flag finial of an eagle was to be erected outside the pavilion.<\/p>\n

\n\tRavenal\u2019s proposal reads, according to the Post, \u201cAs the United States approaches its semiquincentennial in 2026 \u2026 there is a need for an artistic project that does more than just showcase talent \u2014 it must encourage critical engagement with American symbols and ideals in a time of great change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMany countries have already announced their representatives<\/a> for the Biennale, including Lubaina Himid for Great Britain, Yto Barrada for France, Henrike Naumann\u00a0and\u00a0Sung Tieu for Germany, Abbas Akhavan for Canada, and Amanda Heng for Singapore. (Countries have until January 19 to officially submit<\/a> their pavilions to the Venice Biennale.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Australian Pavilion in particular has faced controversy. Artist Khaled Sabsabi was selected in February, but shortly after the announcement, his appointment was canceled<\/a> by its commissioner Creative Australia, which led to immense outcry<\/a>. Then in July, Creative Australia reinstated<\/a> Sabsabi, giving him a $100,000 grant<\/a> for a 2027 exhibition in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States Pavilion at the upcoming Venice Biennale is in a precarious position after a proposal by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,27562],"class_list":{"0":"post-275435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-venice-biennale-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}