Broad Will Host Jeffrey Gibson's Venice Biennale Show

Installation view of Jeffrey Gibson's U.S. Pavilion at 2024 Venice Biennale

The Broad will present an adaptation of Jeffrey Gibson's 2024 Venice Biennale show this summer. "Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me" will run May 10 to Sep. 28, 2025. The Broad has also announced the acquisition of its first piece by Gibson, the 2024 painting/beadwork THE RETURNED MALE STUDENT FAR TOO FREQUENTLY GOES BACK TO THE RESERVATION AND FALLS INTO THE OLD CUSTOM OF LETTING HIS HAIR GROW LONG. The title quotes a 1902 letter by a Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Jeffrey Gibson, THE RETURNED MALE STUDENT FAR TOO FREQUENTLY GOES BACK TO THE RESERVATION AND FALLS INTO THE OLD CUSTOM OF LETTING HIS HAIR GROW LONG, 2024. The Broad

Gibson was preceded at the Venice Biennale by Simone Leigh, who represented the U.S. in 2022. Much of  Leigh's work from her Venice show visited Los Angeles in a dual presentation at LACMA and the California African American Museum.

It was Broad director Joanne Heyler who approached Gibson about moving the show to Los Angeles. Nearly all elements of the Venice presentation will travel, except for the red outdoor stage, which was too large for the Broad's space. The MAGA cultural purge notwithstanding, Gibson told the Art Newspaper that the L.A. presentation will not tone down the exhibition: "As a private institution, [the Broad is] not attached to federal funding. It means they are still in charge of what they program." 

That leaves open the far-from-hypothetical question of what future U.S. pavilions will look like. Of the past five U.S. pavilion artists, four are persons of color and three are gay. (The one white artist is echt-feminist Joan Jonas.) Donald Trump's seemingly profound disinterest in the arts has not precluded him from taking a hands-on role at the Kennedy Center and rooting out DEI at the National Gallery of Art. Meanwhile the National Endowment for the Arts is promoting artworks celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. John Trumbull for Venice 2026? 

U.S. Pavilion, 2024 Venice Biennale