The non-profit behind the United States pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale has warned it is about $1 million short of the money needed to bring Alma Allen's sculptures home, leaving the works at risk of being stranded in Italy once the exhibition closes. The American Arts Conservancy has raised $1.4 million of the $2.5 million it needs, according to a report in The New York Times, and its director has written to donors pleading for help with the final deinstallation and the safe return of the artworks to the United States.

The shortfall is striking because this year's pavilion was praised for costing far less than its predecessors. The 2024 pavilion cost about $5 million and the 2022 edition about $7 million, while the State Department contributed its usual $375,000 grant this year and the new non-profit was left to raise the rest. Most of its fundraising came through private events attended by donors including the fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger and the collector and former US Navy secretary John Phelan.

The organisation is led by Jenni Parido, a former pet-store owner with a degree in graphic design and little prior background in the art world. She is a friend of Erin Scavino, the director of the State Department's Art in Embassies programme and a former contestant on Donald Trump's television show The Apprentice.

Finding somewhere to store the sculptures in Venice would be very difficult, the art historian Katy Siegel, who co-curated the 2017 US Pavilion, told the Times, noting that some of Allen's pieces weigh almost a ton. "Maybe there is no oversight now. This is crazy," she said.

Allen, who is based in Mexico, told the Times he had not known about the organisation's financial troubles. "I received only reimbursement for travel and my Airbnb," he said, "which was cheap."