Will the US enlist ‘dissident-right art hoes’ to win the Venice Biennale?

In 1964, at the height of the Cold War, Robert Rauschenberg became the first US artist to win the grand prize at the Venice Biennale. As told in the 2023 documentary Taking Venice, the victory was clouded by conspiracy theories: the jury was allegedly rigged, rules were circumvented by a team of American art and politics insiders, and a military plane was commandeered from the Department of Defence to deliver Rauschenberg’s Americana-obsessed screenprints. The plot? To establish the cultural dominance of the USA, just as the CIA had (allegedly) meddled in the rise of Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock a decade before. Now, in 2025, it seems like we might be on the cusp of a similar conspiracy.

Earlier this month, the far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin shared a proposal for the 2026 Venice Biennale’s American Pavilion with Darren Beattie, the acting Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Whereas most nations have explored the possibilities of cultural crossover or inspired deep reflections on our place in space and time in recent years, Yarvin believes that America’s next effort should serve as a platform for “dissident-right art hos”, according to a retelling of the conversation in his recent New Yorker profile.

Rising to fame as the pseudonymous writer named Mencius Moldbug, Yarvin has long courted the kinds of cultural characters that might fall under the “dissident-right” umbrella. That is, he’s a fan favourite among many of the artists and writers associated with Dimes Square – the NYC-based cultural clique formed around saying slurs, semi-ironic support for MAGA, and trad aesthetics – as well as making multiple Red Scare appearances. However, he’s also tied to many high-profile figures in Washington DC and Silicon Valley, notably including vice-president JD Vance.

This level of cultural influence is quite crazy, given Yarvin’s history as a slavery apologist and enthusiast toward a techno-fascist-style takeover of the United States, in order to usher in a new style of absolute monarchy. But then, in case you haven’t been paying attention, America does appear to be undergoing a not-so-slow slide into autocracy. Still in the first year of his second presidential term, Donald Trump has overseen the detainment and deportation of activists who disagree with his government’s regime, expelled legal US citizens, violently cracked down on demonstrations, and dismantled (with the help of his former “first buddy” Elon Musk) many of the institutions that might hold him accountable. With an unconstitutional third Trump term not fully ruled out for 2028, the worst-case scenario – a Yarvin-style, high-tech dictatorship – doesn’t seem impossible.

But then, where do the “dissident-right art hos” fit into this plan? Maybe we can look back to Taking Venice for some pointers. “Art is not only about art,” says Christine Macel, curator of the 2017 Venice Biennale, at the start of the documentary. “It’s about power and politics. When you have the power, you show it through art.” In the case of the 1964 fiasco, it was about America sending a message about its “superior” way of life, centred on liberty and freedom of speech (as long as that speech doesn’t get too much in the way of US government interests). It’s debatable how much agency Rauschenberg actually had in this propaganda scheme, or if he was just a pawn in a bigger game played by influential dealers and diplomats.

If Yarvin’s vision for the Venice Biennale does come to pass, of course, the message will be... quite different. It could signal a supposed right-wing triumph over “woke” culture, reflecting a broader backlash on both sides of the political spectrum. It could make reactionary politics more “fashionable” in line with Yarvin’s long-term plans. And it could herald even darker days ahead for the US and the lives it touches across the globe. If one thing is for sure, it’s that the artists involved, like all the abstract expressionists and pop artists before them, wouldn’t actually be the ones holding the reins. They probably wouldn’t be any better off in a techno-fascist neo-monarchy (or whatever hyphenated dystopia the right-wing is cooking up now) in exchange for taking part, either. Authoritarians aren’t famous for their love of artists, after all.

At the end of the day, we’re left with one pressing question: could America really pluck a few terminally online personalities from Dimes Square and unleash them on Venice, to say the R-word in front of the world’s art press? Well, it’s still unclear whether the US will even have a pavilion at this year’s competition, since organisers have left an unusually short time to put an exhibition together and transport it to Italy. “I honestly think it might already be past the point of no return,” Kathleen Ash-Milby, who co-commissioned the American pavilion in 2024, told Vanity Fair earlier this month.

That said, the entry requirements for this year’s US entry have been tweaked to reflect the conservative ideology of the new Trump administration, stripping any mention of diversity and calling for artworks with a “non-political character” (read: not woke). So if anyone’s got a chance, maybe it is the “dissident-right art hos” after all.