Moments during the uprising at the Giardini
1968
Photo: Ferruzzi
Giuseppe Ungaretti, Hans Hartung, Franz Kline, and Jean Fautrier in the Kline room in the United States Pavilion
1960
Photo: Foto Film
Hans Hartung, Design for the cover of the magazine La Biennale di Venezia, mixed media on cardboard, 490x580 mm
1960
Photo: ASAC Fondo Artistico
Giorgio Morandi, Piccola natura morta con tre oggetti, etching, 206x240 mm
1961
Photo: ASAC Fondo Artistico
Alberto Giacometti in the room with the artist’s personal exhibition
1962
Photo: ASAC Fototeca
Alberto Giacometti photographed by Ugo Mulas in the room with the artist’s personal exhibition
1962
Photo: ASAC Fototeca
Alberto Giacometti photographed by Ugo Mulas
1962
Photo: ASAC Fototeca
Robert Rauschenberg in the United States Pavilion with the Minister of Public Education, Luigi Gui
1964
Photo: ASAC Fototeca
Robert Rauschenberg receives the Award for Best Foreign Artist
1964
Photo: ASAC Fototeca
Robert Rauschenberg receives the Award for Best Foreign Artist
1964
Photo: ASAC Fototeca
Telegram from Michael Barjansky (of the American Embassy in Italy)
11 May 1964
Photo: ASAC Fondo Storico
The Lucio Fontana room designed by Carlo Scarpa
1966
Photo: Giacomelli
Letter from Alberto Burri to the Secretary General of the Biennale, Gian Alberto Dell’Acqua
1966
Photo: ASAC Fondo Storico
Letter from Gastone Novelli to the direction of the Biennale and to the press
20 June 1968
Photo: ASAC Fondo Storico
Gastone Novelli’s canvases hung backwards in protest
1968
Photo: Ferruzzi
Protest by Gastone Novelli
1968
Photo: Ferruzzi
Moments during the student uprising at the Giardini
1968
Photo: Ferruzzi
Moments during the student uprising at the Giardini
1968
Photo: Ferruzzi
Moments during the student uprising at the Giardini, visible in the photograph are Luigi Nono with his arm raised and Massimo Cacciari at the centre
1968
Photo: Ferruzzi
Protest at the Giardini, visible from right are Emilio Vedova, Luigi Nono and Carlo Scarpa at the centre
1968
Photo: Ferruzzi
Letter from the Special Commissioner of the Biennale Gian Alberto Dell’Acqua to the Ministry of Public Education
15 April 1970
Photo: ASAC Fondo Storico
Alberto Biasi, Dinamica visiva, silkscreen on paper and transparent acetate, 2/100, 40x30,2 cm
1969
Photo: ASAC Fondo Artistico
Christa Rudloff, Composizione serigrafica, Plexiglas and silkscreen print, version with black 32/50, 17,4x17,5x10 cm
1970
Photo: ASAC Fondo Artistico
Franco Costalonga, Oggetto cromo-cinetico, transparent Plexiglas and silvered plastic, version with a red pivot, diametre 15 cm
1970
Photo: ASAC Fondo Artistico
Franco Costalonga, Oggetto cromo-cinetico, transparent Plexiglas and moulded plastic, version with silvered diaphragm, diametre 15 cm
1970
Photo: ASAC Fondo Artistico
“Will they devour the cabbages of Venice or will they be devoured by the pigeons?” A review of the project “Organic struggle for survival” by the group Mass Moving, “Paese Sera”
10 June 1972
Photo: ASAC Raccolta Documentaria
“The mongoloid at the Biennale is the product of Italian subculture”, a review by Pier Paolo Pasolini of the work by Gino de Dominicis, Seconda soluzione di immortalità, “Il Tempo”
25 June 1972
Photo: ASAC Raccolta Documentaria
“Beastly Art”, from “Lo Specchio” (review of the work by Gino de Dominicis, Seconda soluzione di immortalità)
18 June 1972
Photo: ASAC Raccolta Documentaria
“Shame on the Biennale”, from “La fiera letteraria” (with a review of the work by Gino de Dominicis, Seconda soluzione di immortalità)
18 June 1972
Photo: ASAC Raccolta Documentaria
Franco Vaccari, Esposizione in tempo reale
1972
Photo: ASAC Fototeca
Detail of the work by Franco Vaccari, Esposizione in tempo reale
1972
Photo: ASAC Fototeca
The Brigata Salvador Allende at work in Campo Santa Margherita
1974
Photo: Lorenzo Cappellini
Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta painting a mural
1974
Photo: ASAC Fototeca
James Lee Byars, projects for the big man-shaped sheet made for the performance Holy Ghost in Piazza San Marco
1975
Photo: ASAC Fondo Storico
James Lee Byars, performance of Holy Ghost in Piazza San Marco
1975
Photo: Mark Smith
James Lee Byars, performance of Holy Ghost in Piazza San Marco
1975
Photo: Mark Smith
Joseph Beuys with Gae Aulenti at the Giardini
1976
Photo: Foto Reporter
Man Ray, André Breton, 1932, photograph in black and white, 268x240 mm
1932, reprinted in 1976
Photo: ASAC Fondo Artistico
Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, photograph in black and white, 220x161 mm
1922, reprinted in 1976
Photo: ASAC Fondo Artistico
Man Ray, Francis Picabia, photograph in black and white, 132x178 mm
1922, reprinted in 1976
Photo: ASAC Fondo Artistico
Man Ray, Gertrude Stein, photograph in black and white, 80x100 mm
1922, reprinted in 1976
Photo: ASAC Fondo Artistico
Action with horses by Jannis Kounellis
1976
Photo: Cameraphoto
Ilja Kabakov at the Biennale of Dissent
1977
Photo: Giacomelli
Article by Carlo Ripa di Meana, “News from the Biennale” on The New York Review
1977
Photo: ASAC Fondo Storico
Door/11 by Marcel Duchamp (work on loan from Fabio Sargentini and painted over by mistake by one of the workers during the installation in the space)
1978
Photo: ASAC Fototeca
The President of the Biennale di Venezia Carlo Ripa di Meana with the President of the Council of Ministers Giulio Andreotti before the work by Menashe Kadishman, Sheep in the Israeli Pavilion
1978
Photo: Lorenzo Cappellini
Mario Merz
1978
Photo: Lorenzo Cappellini
1964 was a watershed moment in which American art came to the fore and abstract painting turned into the standard bearer of Western liberalism in Europe. The curator of the US pavilion was Alan Solomon, and in the words of Italian-American gallery owner Leo Castelli, he “put together the best things to be found in American art after the great period of Abstract Expressionism”. A lack of space meant that the work of the eight exhibiting artists – Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, John Chamberlain, and Claes Oldenburg – was shown at two different sites: the American pavilion in the Giardini and the former US consulate at San Gregorio in Venice.
1968 was the year of protests: just a few days before the Biennale Arte opened, students occupied their universities and art academies and took to the streets to demonstrate in support of the Prague Spring. Seen as a symbol of bourgeois culture, with an anachronistic statute, the Biennale became the demonstrators’ primary target.
In the early 1970s La Biennale’s biggest problem was still its statute. Debates at the governmental level on the issue began in early 1973, and on 26 July the Italian Parliament finally approved new regulations to modernise the former Fascist statute, in force since 1938. It was not until 20 March 1974, however, that the board’s eighteen members were appointed from across the political spectrum.
In 1977 La Biennale explored the theme of “dissent”. Then in 1978, the Biennale Arte adopted a deliberately non-political title: Dalla natura all’arte dall’arte alla natura (From Nature to Art and from Art to Nature).
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