Will The Unsafe House take over the Venice Biennial 2026?

It is always difficult to assess a chance of something happening if you have only access to limited direct information or people stay quiet on the real issues involved.

In a former post we talked about the apparent demise of The Creeps from the Middle East in which we shortly mentioned the new biotope of Sina Khani, the main character of The Creeps:

"The last year Khani seems to be submerged in The Unsafe House project, initiated by Tarik Sadouma, he even lives in their dwellings and seems to have left Berlin. Did he leave The Creeps behind?"

Sadouma, also a character in episode 5, is boosting his art career in several ways. This seems necessary, as he claims to  have been cancelled, recently  by cultural institutions such as De Balie in Amsterdam and the Art Academy of Leipzig (HGB). To achieve this aim Sadouma is running for the USA Venice Biennial pavilion, in collaboration with his friend philosopher, monarchist and "lord of darkness" Curtis Yarvin, who is convinced that Sadouma makes a serious chance to be the USA candidate for the Biennale di Venezia. This topic has also been discussed in The Unsafe House podcast, hosted by Sadouma’s partners in crime, Ruth Spetter and Sina Khani. People interested should watch the podcast.

Sadouma has emerged as a brilliant A.I.-powered trailer producer. ”I like his satirical way of using it," a friend of mine remarked recently. His creative flair even extends to painting, where, according to some,  his unique visual language and bold ideas stand out. Judge for yourself: Tarik Sadouma Paintings

Of course, the Venice Biennale demands something on a larger scale, and while trailers alone might not suffice, his concept The Unsafe House, a kind of relational artwork, could be just the thing. Why not build it in the pavilion in Venice in 2026? That would be my suggestion.

The Unsafe House is currently pouring energy into a bold proposal, set to be delivered by Curtis Yarvin to a cultural envoy in the Trump administration.  A strategic move to bypass the usual tastemakers of the art world in the USA. It’s an audacious approach, but then again, that’s very much Sadouma’s style. To quote the Vanity Fair about their shenanigans: The Barbarians Are at the Gates. 

In the meantime Sadouma, the initiator of The Unsafe House, went on with his project to really achieve a participation in the Venice Biennial. He and some of his partners visited the USA a couple of times, had a meeting with Curtis Yarvin, the big ‘project accelerator’, in Paris, and assured me in personal talks the chance of really getting the USA Pavilion commission was 70%!

As a former professional researcher of opinions, consumers and markets,  you have several options to estimate certain developments by, for example, desk research, combined with qualitative interview techniques, using projective techniques, and  others and you can make people talk on subjects they prefer to stay silent on. This  might deliver relevant data, like a recent publication in The Washington Post and others on latest developments and  relevant candidates for the Venice Biennial 2026.

After visiting The Unsafe House a few times, inviting them to exhibitions with Art Space 411, contributing performances and jingles, and being the main musician on Sina Khani’s No Gaza No Cry, recorded in the Unsafe studios, I found myself caught in a strange dual role. On one hand, I try to stay objective and reliable, maintain a professional face, maybe even live a normal life. On the other hand, there’s the pull of my own projects, artistic and journalistic, increasingly entangled with radical gestures and controversial figures. Collaborating with someone like Sina Khani feels urgent and necessary, but how far can you go before the risk outweighs the impact? And how do you navigate all this without losing your footing or getting cancelled?

Let’s go back to the main topic: will The Unsafe House actually be selected to represent the USA at the Venice Biennial of 2026?

Sadouma and his partners have been quite secretive to me about their proposal, but in The Washington Post though, much is revealed: The proposal would present artists who "have been previously excluded or underrepresented by the hegemonic and ideological art world," artists "who challenge progressive orthodoxies" with a vision of patriotism and traditional values according to their application. Their proposal also includes a workshop for "public figures aligned with conservative or MAGA-related values," like movie stars, to co-create artworks in collaboration with traditional American craftspeople."

The Washington Post reports: “Their vision calls for the U.S. pavilion to be rebaptized as the Salon des Déplorables, a reference to the Salon des Refusés, the 19th-century Parisian exhibition of rejected avant-garde works. A Museum of Dark Enlightenment will showcase artwork of creation and destruction that will declare the 'old' art world to be dead. A series of Hollywood-style sets will offer a provocative mimicry of pop art, without its often disdainful view of American identity.”

It is a clever strategy. By positioning themselves as the alternative, once excluded art community, they directly challenge the art establishment that has long controlled the selection of U.S. representatives at the Biennale. In this shifting cultural landscape, marked by a reorientation of leadership within American institutions, there is a real opportunity. As the Trump administration reshapes the ideological direction of cultural policy, figures like Curtis Yarvin and Tarik Sadouma are not just provocateurs. They are emerging as serious contenders with a cohesive and radical vision. If this momentum continues, it is entirely possible that Sadouma and his collaborators could represent the United States in Venice in 2026.

One very important note on the main competing artist with an "overtly Trumpian, Maga" proposal: Andres Serrano. Notoriously bombarded to fame in the late 80’s with his Piss Christ work (officially called 'Immersion (Piss Christ)),' which also could be the hindrance to his selection by the way, considering the very conservative and explicitly pro-Christian roots of the Maga movement now trying to control and redesign the USA.

Again The Washington Post: Serrano "now thinks he has a perfect fit for a MAGA-ified Biennale. ‘The Game: All Things Trump’ is Serrano’s exhibition of Trump ephemera from his casinos, product lines and television work over the years."

Considering the narcissistic personality of the current president this proposal might even have a bigger chance of being selected, presupposing that the Piss Christ is successfully concealed by the Serrano team.

Things are shifting. The old cultural hierarchies are cracking, and in that space, people like Curtis Yarvin and especially Tarik Sadouma are starting to move in ways that seemed unthinkable a few years ago. In my opinion, Sadouma isn’t just reacting to the moment. He is actually shaping it, with a mix of strategical thinking and sharp media instincts, dark humor, and a kind of unapologetic aesthetic strategy. If the current momentum holds, I genuinely think it is not far fetched to imagine him taking over the U.S. pavilion in Venice in 2026. And honestly, it would make sense in the current cultural and political climate in the USA. His work speaks directly to this weird and unstable time, not just in opposition to the established art world but as something that could replace it.

The decision on who will be the selected artist will fall this month, September-October  2025.

Hans Kuiper

Unsafe interview with musical genius Mohsen Namjoo

Photo: Sina Khani & Mohsen Namjoo (Photo: Steven Bos)

We are very happy to be able to present the recording of the interview of Sina Khani (Creeps from the Middle East), Tarik Sadouma (The Rise of the Unsafe House), and Ruth Spetter (idem) conducted with Mohsen Namjoo after his concert in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Mohsen Namjoo is an Iranian musician and poet currently living in New York. In 2025 he is touring the world with his Minooor Show, a multimedia solo show, singing, reciting, playing the setar, and showing images. Minooor refers to the minor scale, according to some the only allowed musical scale in current Iran.

Mohsen Namjoo talks about his show, the use of sound and music, while in the background a selection of images are shown of the Green Movement, an oppositional political movement in Iran emerging in 2009.

This movement came to be after an apparently fraudulent presidential election in which the regime’s candidate, Ahmadinejad, became the winner, which was disputed by the opposition movement. The government arrested around 4,000 people and 72 people were killed during the protests.

Namjoo had already had a turbulent life and career, so it seems. After visiting the Tehran University of Art, he published his Toranj Album, which became a great success among the Iranian people but angered the government. In court he was sentenced to 5 years, in absentia, as he lived in Vienna at the time, for recording music that “dishonours passages from the Quran.”

The album featured nine traditional folk songs including poems of Rumi, Hafez, Baba Taher, and Attar, famous Persian poets of the past. It was mostly produced as underground music.

The story is, Namjoo was sentenced because of making animal sounds while singing the 91st Sura of the Quran. Because of this sentence, Namjoo will not return to his native country until the Islamist regime is sacked.