Taking Venice

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2:06

Taking Venice

2024

1h 38m

Documentary

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Popcornmeter

73%

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15 Reviews

Popcornmeter

Fewer than 50 Ratings

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.

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Owen Gleiberman

Variety

05/31/2024

If you want to know how the definition of “scandal” has changed with the decades, you couldn’t do much better than to see Taking Venice, Amei Wallach’s highly enjoyable and revealing documentary about a legendary uproar in the art world.

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Christopher Knight

Los Angeles Times

05/20/2024

The account is well-told and worth knowing, even without conspiratorial murmurs.

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Matt Zoller Seitz

RogerEbert.com

05/17/2024

2.5/4

The movie skates over that irony instead of digging into it.

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Dennis Harvey

48 Hills

07/05/2024

More conventionally crafted than the disruptive art it chronicles, Taking Venice nonetheless uses plentiful archival materials and latter-day interviews to tell a fascinating story.

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Charles Solomon

FilmWeek (LAist)

06/14/2024

It's frenetic without telling you anything really that fascinating.

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Wade Major

FilmWeek (LAist)

06/14/2024

A very competently-made doc about really pretentious subject matter... I found it somewhat uninvolving, but I was able to admire it from a distance.

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Amei Wallach

Director

Luke Kirby

Alan Solomon

Andrea Miller

Producer

Tal Mandil

Producer

Vanessa Bergonzoli

Producer

Mead Hunt

Cinematographer

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Synopsis

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.

Director: Amei Wallach
Producer: Andrea Miller, Tal Mandil, Vanessa Bergonzoli
Distributor: Zeitgeist Films / Kino Lorber
Production Co: Display None Productions
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): May 17, 2024, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jul 16, 2024
Box Office (Gross USA): $65.3K
Runtime: 1h 38m