Alma Allen

Career & Biography

Identity

Gender

Male

Full Name

Alma Allen

Birth Date

June 17, 1970

Birth Place

Heber City / Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Nationality

American (North American)

Getty Ulan Id

500333816

Current Location

Tepoztlán, Mexico

Previous Locations

• New York City (early career, street sales in Soho)
• Joshua Tree / Mojave Desert, California (self-built studio, 1990s–2010s)

Education

Notes

Left home at age 16; developed practice entirely independently through direct material engagement. Formative work produced and sold on streets of New York City. Practice evolved in isolation in the Mojave Desert before institutional discovery.

Formal Training

Self-taught — no formal art education of any kind

Career Timeline

Period	Milestone
Born 1970	Born June 17, 1970 in Utah; raised in a large Mormon family in rural surroundings, deeply shaped by the natural landscape
Late 1980s	Left home at 16; moved to New York City; began selling small hand-carved objects made from found stone and urban materials on the streets of Soho
1990s–2000s	Relocated to Joshua Tree / Mojave Desert, California; designed and built own studio by hand; sold work independently from studio to a niche collector community; rarely exhibited publicly
c. mid-2000s	Suffered an accident that limited physical capacity; in response innovated use of robotic arms to scale hand-modeled maquettes into large and monumental works — this technology integration became a defining feature of mature practice
2014	Career breakthrough: 3 works selected by Michelle Grabner for Whitney Biennial; Time magazine named white marble 'Untitled' (2013) one of 'Five Best Works at the Whitney Biennial'; widely profiled in T: NYT Style Magazine; images circulated globally; Artforum and art press take notice
2015	Solo exhibition at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles — reviewed in Artforum (Andrew Berardini) and ArtReview; begins formal gallery representation
2016–2018	Gallery roster expands: Blum & Poe (LA), Kasmin (New York), Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo/Brussels); group exhibitions at Palm Springs Art Museum, de Saisset Museum
2018–2019	Two-person exhibition 'In Conversation: Alma Allen & JB Blunk' at Palm Springs Art Museum, traveled to Nevada Museum of Art (Reno); LACMA and Palm Springs Art Museum acquire works for permanent collections
2020	First monograph published by Rizzoli Electa, with essays by craft historian Glenn Adamson and curator Douglas Fogle — formal academic framing of practice
2021–2022	Outdoor installation at Rockefeller Center New York ('Masa', 2022); solo exhibitions at Kasmin Sculpture Garden, Van Buuren Museum & Gardens Brussels, Mendes Wood DM Brussels
2023	Solo exhibition 'Nunca Solo' at Museo Anahuacalli, Mexico City — bridges pre-Columbian and modernist sculptural traditions; exhibitions at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens (Belgium), Blum & Poe (LA), Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo)
2024	Solo exhibition at Kasmin New York (May–June); second monograph 'Nunca Solo' published by Kasmin Books; featured in Art Basel Magazine; begins discussions with Emmanuel Perrotin (October)
May–Sept 2025	Park Avenue outdoor installation — 10 unique bronze and onyx sculptures, 8 sites spanning nearly 20 blocks; largest outdoor installation to date; organized by Kasmin / The Sculpture Committee of The Fund for Park Avenue / NYC Parks
November 2025	US State Department confirms Allen as US Pavilion representative at 61st Venice Biennale 2026; both previous galleries (Kasmin/Olney Gleason and Mendes Wood DM) drop Allen after he accepts Venice commission
March 2026	Joins Perrotin, mega-gallery with 10+ global locations — the most significant gallery upgrade of his career, timed to maximum visibility moment
May 2026	Venice Biennale 'Call Me the Breeze' opens — 30 sculptures, 12-year career survey; receives international press coverage including Artnet, Frieze, ARTnews, Artsy
Fall 2026	Debut solo exhibition with Perrotin Paris planned — 20 new works; further cements Tier 1 gallery relationship

Studio Practice

Scale

Thimble-sized fetishes and bowls through to 10+ foot monumental bronzes and onyx works

Methods

Combines hand-carving of small maquettes with robotic arm technology to scale works to monumental size; direct physical engagement with natural materials; foundry-based bronze casting. Foraged materials from surrounding landscapes are central.

Studio Location

Tepoztlán, Mexico — home studio and foundry. Previously Joshua Tree / Mojave Desert, California (self-designed and built).

Naming Convention

All works titled 'Not Yet Titled' — a deliberate conceptual stance emphasizing the work as perpetually in a state of becoming rather than fixed meaning.

Artistic Influences

• Constantin Brancusi (biomorphic abstraction, material essence)
• Isamu Noguchi (modernist sculpture and furniture crossover)
• Donald Judd (furniture-as-art tradition)
• JB Blunk (shared American West craft and direct material ethos — two-person exhibition 2018)
• Georges Bataille (philosophy of truth through violent contradiction)
• Surrealist automatism (form-generation without fixed intention)
• Natural landscapes of Utah (childhood), Mojave Desert (studio years), and mountains of Tepoztlán Mexico (current studio)
• Pre-Columbian sculptural traditions (deepened through Museo Anahuacalli context)

Personal Background

Upbringing

Large Mormon family in rural Utah; childhood immersion in natural landscape and found materials

Injury and Innovation

An unspecified accident limiting physical capacity drove adoption of robotic technology — a pivot that enabled the monumental scale of mature works

Independent Trajectory

Entirely outside formal art education; self-taught through street sales, isolation, and private collector relationships over two decades before institutional recognition