In 1964, the American artist Robert Rauschenberg was awarded the grand prize on the Venice Biennale. Was that prize predetermined, because of the US navy airplane that introduced his outsized artwork to Venice and to maneuverings by the seller Leo Castelli and others to sway the jury?
A storm of accusations flared within the press in 1964, and the case lived on in tutorial research of Chilly Conflict cultural diplomacy.
The brand new documentary Taking Venice, directed by Amei Wallach, revisits these occasions as if the story have been a thriller. And it’s in the present day, as a result of the artwork intrigue surrounding Rauschenberg’s prize has been largely forgotten and the US authorities had a extra pressing plot to research on the time—the 22 November 1963 assassination of president John F. Kennedy.
Those that watch the movie for proof of a conspiracy get some skullduggery, however no smoking gun. What they do get are accounts of a madcap marketing campaign, with nostalgic footage of Venice earlier than in the present day’s vacationer gridlock, and a prequel to the cash-fueled politics behind main artwork occasions and main awards which are so widespread in the present day.
In 1964, Rauschenberg was to point out on the US Pavilion in Venice with a bunch of American artists—Claes Oldenburg, Frank Stella, Jim Dine and John Chamberlain. The all-male showcase was typical of the time, though the highly effective seller Ileana Sonnabend (Castelli’s ex-wife) aided the group.
Recreation of the 1964 transport of Robert Rauschenberg’s work in Venice canals for exhibition on the Venice Biennale. Nonetheless from Taking Venice. Courtesy Zeitgeist Movies
Nonetheless an outsider in 1964, within the suave Castelli’s secure, Rauschenberg, raised an evangelical Christian, was aglow after a one-man present on the Jewish Museum in New York. A brand new director at that establishment, Alan Solomon, had steered a sleepy place into modern artwork. With the Washington insider Alice Denney of the US Info Company (USIA), Solomon and Castelli would get Rauschenberg and his artwork to Venice and to fame.
Denney, who died final month in Washington at 101, had essential DC connections, procuring a US Air Power airplane to move the artist’s signature assemblages, together with Monogram (1955-59), a stuffed goat with a tire round its neck. Critics, aghast on the goat, stated the works weren’t work or sculptures. Rauschenberg coined the time period “combines” in response. The works flew to a North Atlantic Treaty Group (Nato) base close to Venice, however nonetheless couldn’t match within the awkwardly proportioned US Pavilion. Solomon positioned them in a vacant former US consulate subsequent to the Peggy Guggenheim Basis, breaking a rule that they needed to present within the pavilion. At a celebration on the former consulate, a distiller donated sufficient whiskey to intoxicate any dissenters, the wise-cracking Denney remembers.
The identical critics nonetheless booed a efficiency at Teatro La Fenice by the Merce Cunningham Dance Firm, with a radiant stage décor by Rauschenberg. Jurors who attended have been charmed. Rauschenberg lastly bought the prize.
Denney, venerable and wry, and Solomon are the surprises in Taking Venice. Denney, in her personal manner, was as adept an operator as Castelli. “Folks stated, ‘Oh Alice is simply seducing all of the jurors.’ Consider me, that will have taken plenty of seducing,” she remembers. Solomon, working together with her, exploited a chameleon-like talent at seeming Italian, with out actually understanding the language. He died at 49 in 1970, taking loads of tales with him.
“We didn’t cheat. We had a aim, as all international locations did,” Denney says.
Transporting Robert Rauschenberg’s Specific on the 1964 Venice Biennale. Picture Ugo Mulas © Ugo Mulas Heirs. All rights reserved.
But their gambit produced an enduring rage, not simply amongst some Italians, however significantly amongst French critics. In newspaper articles flashed on the display screen—which the movie might have lingered on longer—we learn jeremiads of the historical régime in decline. The affair’s J’accuse equal, “Betrayal in Venice” by the poet and journalist Alain Bosquet, ran within the leftist newspaper Fight.
“There are darkish days within the historical past of human consciousness. There are shameful moments,” Bosquet wrote. “The consecration, if one can name it that, of the American painter Robert Rauschenberg on the Venice Biennale is a degrading occasion within the present dysfunction. One wonders if Western artwork can recuperate. One can’t underestimate the gravity of this insult to all that, in our time, represents concord, critical inquiry and lasting worth.”
Bosquet was hyperbolic, however he was on to one thing that wasn’t a secret. France had misplaced its place as a centre for artwork to New York and to Individuals just like the amiable Texan Rauschenberg. And behind Rauschenberg and a rising variety of artists have been sellers and armies of publicists elbowing to position their works in biennials and win them prizes. The conspiracy steered within the movie was only a fancy phrase for promotion. Castelli was a businessman. Who would have anticipated the rest from him?
Taking Venice screened on the Doc NYC movie pageant final month and will likely be distributed extensively by Zeitgeist Movies in spring 2024.
