Guadalupe Maravilla Says Venice Police Stopped Him After Biennale Installation
Guadalupe Maravilla says a routine walk away from the Arsenale turned into a confrontation with police in Venice, just after he finished installing work for the Venice Biennale. The New York-based artist said two officers approached him, demanded his documents, called for backup, and moved to detain and handcuff him before he was able to de-escalate the situation and leave.
In a written statement, Maravilla described the encounter as racial profiling. He said the episode echoed the very conditions his work addresses: surveillance, detention, and the long afterlife of state violence. That tension is especially pointed because he plans to present new versions of his “Disease Thrower” sculptures at the Biennale.
Maravilla is best known for that series of intricate sculptural works, which often include gongs and singing bowls and are activated in sound baths. He has said the pieces emerge from two formative experiences: his childhood migration on foot from El Salvador to the United States and a cancer diagnosis in adulthood. In his practice, those histories are not separate narratives but intertwined sources of injury and repair.
The artist said the Venice incident underscored how racialized scrutiny travels across borders. He linked the experience to the broader treatment of Latino/Latine/Latinx communities in the United States and to the detention of migrants in ICE facilities, which he described as part of the same system of control. He also said his work is meant to function as a healing instrument, especially for children who have experienced detention, displacement, and trauma.
Maravilla’s profile has been rising across the museum world. His work is currently included in “Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials” at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, “Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way” at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Upstate New York, and the 2026 Diriyah Biennale in Saudi Arabia. Next week, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, will open an exhibition pairing his work with that of the late self-taught sculptor Emery Blagdon.
Beyond exhibitions, Maravilla said he has spent the past eight years on mutual aid, food justice, volunteer organizing, and resource distribution, including coat drives. He also said he has supported newly arrived immigrants and refugees in New York City through personal grant funding and mentorship. Even after the Venice encounter, he said he feels more committed to that work, not less — a reminder that for Maravilla, art and care remain inseparable.
