Taking Venice
with director Amei Wallach in person
At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government is determined to fight Communism with culture. The Venice Biennale, the world’s most influential art exhibition, becomes a proving ground in 1964. Alice Denney, Washington insider and friend of the Kennedys, recommends Alan Solomon, an ambitious curator making waves with trailblazing art, to organize the U.S. entry. Together with Leo Castelli, a powerful New York art dealer, they embark on a daring plan to make Robert Rauschenberg the winner of the Grand Prize. The artist is yet to be taken seriously with his combinations of junk off the street and images from pop culture, but he has the potential to dazzle. Deftly pulling off maneuvers that could have come from a Hollywood thriller, the American team leaves the international press crying foul and Rauschenberg questioning the politics of nationalism that sent him there.
Amei Wallach is an art critic and filmmaker. Her earlier documentary film portrait, “Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here,” debuted at New York’s Film Forum and the Moscow Biennale in Fall, 2013. She is the author of “Ilya Kabakiv: The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away” (Abrams, 1996), the first monograph on the artist. She has contributed to such publications as The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Art in America and ArtNews. With the late Marion Cajori, she co-directed the internationally acclaimed documentary “Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine.” She was chief art critic for Newsday and New York Newsday, arts commentator for the PBS MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, and is president emeritus of AICA/USA, the US chapter of the International Art Critics Association.
Cost: $16 Public | $10 Members
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