In a sweeping move that’s sending shockwaves through the contemporary art world, President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Venice Biennale, calling the prestigious exhibition spotlighting the artists of more than 80 countries from around the world “too diverse.”
Issued today, April 1, the executive order titled “Restoring Blandness to American Art and Protecting Our Nation From the Radical Influence of Pavilions” calls for “a return to showcasing the great art of this country in a context-free void” and “definitely not in a liberal European swamp, surrounded by all the other, much shittier countries.”
Trump added that Venice has “WAY too much water, probably more water than anywhere else, ever.”
“Once widely respected as a propaganda machine for such luminaries as Hitler and Mussolini, the Venice Biennale has in recent years become a dumping ground for woke ideology,” reads Trump’s executive order, citing an article by an obscure conservative art critic named Dan Kissass.
The US Pavilion was built in 1930 at the height of the Colonial Revival style, a time Trump lauded as “the golden age of American architecture.” According to the new mandate, the neoclassical structure will be disassembled and rebuilt on the White House lawn as a steakhouse called Well Done, funded by the former salaries of 24,000 federal workers cut by DOGE.
Amid rising tensions between Europe and Washington, Italy’s far-right prime minister cheered Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Venice Biennale and said she would soon follow suit, telling the newspaper Il Facho that her government would relocate “not just the pavilion but the whole country out of Europe if JD Vance — merda, I mean God — wills it.”
Senior White House officials confidentially told Hyperallergic that Trump would reverse course on the mandate if the US Pavilion was granted the entirety of 450,000-square-foot Giardini, which the president said he would consider sharing with Israel.
Please tell me this is a joke for April Fools
April fools!
Please don’t feed the beast any more ideas – it may be April Fool but the Chief Fool in Washington is looking for stuff!
Sadly, this doesn’t even feel like a joke—would not put it past the Fascist in Chief!
Jeeze, I didn’t realize it was April 1 when I read this agggh
Exactly…. How believable this is… In fact, perhaps it was better left unsaid.
For a moment, when I read the headline …. This administration is a very sad joke in motion so not far off the mark, even if April Fool’s Day.
Ok, nice try Ms Di Lascia — but alas your piece needed a stronger editor’s hand to gain a sharper sting. As an old Washington hand — at the beginning — I missed the April 1st date — so I began
reading hoping to savor another serving
of Trumpian taste [so much to choose — eg all those gold splashed rooms down Largo and up NYC — Manhattan’s gold Trump tower] — but 2nd graph gave way the satire– the title alone — “Restoring Blandness….”. Zounds!!! Ms DiL no, no, no…you should have writ
“Restoring Greatness…etc.” Trump is art tone deaf, many politicos are, but he can and is doing great harm to government support — his attacks are BOTH political and cultural — MAGA is not just political vengeance, its restoration of 1950s America impossible, mais oui, but he pudhes on. All points you know I’m sure — I thimk your readers (and editors) can take less Onion bludging and more
S.J.Pearlman carving — get more inside the Lago vibe. I look forward to your next offering on April 1, 2026. Keep on truckin.
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