Taking Venice – Amei Wallach

Review: The New Documentary ‘Taking Venice’ Combines ‘Combines’ and Cold War Conspiracies: “You can’t fault Taking Venice for its timing. Its theatrical release comes just weeks after the opening of the 2024 edition of the Venice Biennale, at a time when the U.S. is on a run of critical successes and public acclaim for its national pavilion curations. …  It’s also the 60th anniversary of the tongue-wagging events investigated in director Amei Wallach’s newest art world documentary. Going into this film you learn, for the first time, perhaps, that rumors have persisted since 1964 alleging that the U.S. government, specifically its military and spy agencies, had meddled in the prize-giving in Venice — and, in a broader sense, had weaponized the excitement around contemporary American art for use in Cold War cultural propaganda. To this end, all sorts of wealthy and well-connected players had, allegedly, bullied and colluded to ensure that the American artist Robert Rauschenberg would win that year’s top painting prize. Which he did. Ultimately, the film, with its earnest protestations and well-informed contextualization of the events surrounding 1964 — many in the form of confident first-person narratives by people who were there when it all went down — presents plausible cases for various interpretations of events. For example, the idea that Alan Solomon, who brought Robert Rauschenberg to wide acclaim by curating his solo exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York, in 1963, and who worked closely with Rauschenberg’s dealer, the Italian-born mega-gallerist Leo Castelli, would energetically champion a win for the artist on the art world’s biggest stage — that makes total sense. The optics of the work arriving in Italy on a U.S. Army transport plane … less so. That happened because Alice Denney, the Washington insider and friend of the Kennedys who had recommended both Solomon and Castelli, was married to a high-ranking intelligence official within the U.S. Information Agency who oversaw the Biennale entry through its fine arts division — which, by the way, is a thing that existed. Denney was invested, not only as a supportive and adventurous art collector but as a matter of international cultural diplomacy. So when funds fell short for transporting Rauschenberg’s large-scale works overseas, she simply borrowed a plane from the Army. Nothing to see here! Extensive details on the contentious meetings of the Biennale’s jury in the lead-up to the eventual vote provide many of the most entertaining passages of the film, with richly recollected parties, lobbying sessions at Cafe Florian, in Piazza San Marco, rather gauche advertising campaigns, and operatic threats between and among the prize committee jurors. At one point, the entire Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s world tour is diverted to Venice — with Rauschenberg acting as its costume designer — for a sold-out performance at the historic Teatro La Fenice, which, by all accounts, moved the ball in the artist’s favor in the final hours before the Biennale opened.  …”
Voice (Video)
Taking Venice (Video)
Zeitgeist Films

Rauschenberg’s paintings were too big for just one boat.