To liberally paraphrase Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Locksley Corridor,” in the summertime, a younger artist’s fancy flippantly turns to ideas of the forthcoming 2026 Venice Biennale. With the appliance for proposals for the USA Pavilion (targeted on “American Values”) open by way of the US State Division till July 30, so many confirmed, conscientious, and certified artists are hoping to safe the possibility to point out the perfect the nation has to supply!
… Apart from at the very least one relentlessly cheugy far-right shit-poster and software program developer, searching for to create a brand new low cultural watermark within the metropolis extra not too long ago well-known for its rising tides. Not content material to merely contribute to the disintegration of democracy right here at dwelling, self-proclaimed “Darkish Lord of the Tech Proper,” malignant fool, and monarchist Curtis Yarvin simply launched a proposed “Venice Biennale Coup” on YouTube that implies his subsequent aim is to carry shame and put it on show on the world’s oldest recurring worldwide artwork exhibition.
“So do you need to begin a revolution in artwork, as nicely?” That’s the questions that touches off the roughly one-minute video preview, posed to Yarvin by Dutch Egyptian artist Tarik Sadouma, who’s collaborating on the as but (fortunately) hypothetical mission. However don’t fear! As Yarvin reassured Self-importance Truthful in a prolonged, unhinged, and seemingly unredacted interview, given the beneficiant utilization of the r-word, “We’re going to say that it’s really my thought, as a result of I’m an American.”
I’m going to exit on a limb right here and state that Sadouma’s nationality is certainly not among the many main points with the proposal. The mission is variously framed by its creators as “SALON DES DEPLORABLES,” a “hardcore right-wing movie,” and a form of MAGA cultural gang-bang centered across the Titian portray “The Rape of Europa” (1559–1562), which Yarvin hilariously thinks the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum would mortgage to him. However whereas we’re counting, neither Titian (Venetian), nor Damien Hirst (British), each of whom Yarvin name-checked as an excellent potential individuals, are American, both. It’s frankly regarding that anybody as supposedly right-wing as Yarvin is having this a lot bother monitoring the citizenship standing of different folks!
As for the “Coup” video itself, we should grant that it has completed one thing beforehand considered unattainable: It has produced a chunk of media extra ill-conceived, needlessly offensive, and vacuously culture-mashing than the 2022 NFT collaboration between Madonna and Beeple. With its fascist posturing, suggestion of militarized violence, laser mild reveals, and relentless ego-buffing within the type of big statuary, it’s like World Conflict Z however with fascists as an alternative of zombies (and likewise on the aspect of the zombies). Yarvin is attempting actually onerous to seem transgressive, but one way or the other additionally copying the now 30-year-old aesthetics of HIStory, the 1995 Michael Jackson world tour trailer that touted nearly equivalent motifs — albeit with MJ’s manufacturing that includes fewer laser zombies and burning Satisfaction flags. That’s all along with being immature, pointlessly offensive, and seeming to vaguely intimate a want to rape Europe — which can be (checks notes) internet hosting the set up.
In a manner, it’s good. And in one other, extra correct manner, please put Curtis Yarvin out to sea atop the Nice Pacific Rubbish Patch, the place he can turn into the darkish tech lord of the seagulls or no matter, and maybe discovered the inaugural Trash Island Biennale, comprised of creatures screeching over scorching rubbish at one another — an enterprise for which I would be the first to say he’s uniquely, and deeply, certified.
