if you manage to dehumidify the air somehow, the amount of air needed is small.

Fridge cooling systems fight against the Relative humidity of the room air especially in warm climates. Enclosing the air surrounding the fridge might exacerbate the situation by a huge amount. The fridge dumps its humidity out into the room air (or the enclosed air).

So 1. the fridge has a hard time cooling its contents if the surrounding air if humid, moist or even if you can't feel it but is still relatively high humidity.
And 2. Unless you get a manual defrost fridge (because this kind of fridge does not dump its internal humidity out into the surronding air) the fridge is creating its own SuperMoist micro environment when surrounding air is enclosed and not "exchanged".

So, you tell us what the RH and temperature is, and we'll tell you a bit more.

HTH
-david

If all you need is a fridge, then a thermo-electric fridge might be useful. It's very, very quiet.

" The goal is ... to silence operation cycles."
Yes, a thermoelectric is silent. You may have a problem with frost buildup at the back.

I was in a hotel that had a refrigerator built into an endtable. All they did was to cut some ventilation slots along the sides at the top (about 1" long, 1/16" wide) and along the back bottom.

I never heard the unit turn on. In fact, I did not know it was there for a day or two until I saw room service checking the contents.

Thermoelectrics will usually have fans on the heat exchanger.