Entertainment
Review: Was the 1964 Venice Biennale rigged? The documentary 'Taking Venice' looks at conspiratorial claims
The Venice Biennale may have lost much of its singular luster, now that hundreds of periodic surveys of new international art have joined the roster of what was the first — and, for decades after its 1895 founding, one of the few — of its kind. An artist can still get an important career boost from successful participation in the venerable and widely publicized Italian exhibition, currently in its 60th outing. (It remains on view at the city’s Giardini and Arsenale through Nov. 24.) But no one anymore expects the extravaganza to dramatically alter larger perceptions of art, the way it once did — perhaps most notably in 1964.
That was the year Robert Rauschenberg, then 38, became the first American artist to win the coveted Grand Prize for Painting, now called the Golden Lion. At the announcement, all hell broke loose. “Treason in Venice,” yelled one newspaper’s overheated headline.
The unprecedented award to an American artist who, a decade earlier, portended the controversial Pop Art genre cresting sealed a slow but steady shift underway since the end of World War II: New York officially bumped Paris from the top slot of cultural taste makers. The critical press in Europe, especially France, framed the story as a scandal. Surely skulduggery was at work.
That’s a frame of reference that guides “Taking Venice,” a bumpy new documentary directed by filmmaker and longtime New York art writer Amei Wallach. “Taking Venice” doesn’t take a position on whether dishonest mischief sullied the jury’s process of choosing Rauschenberg, although it does leave the appropriate sense that the artist easily measured up to the honor. (The other Biennale prizes went to Hungarian-Swiss sculptor Zoltan Kemeny, German draftsman Joseph Fassbender, Italian etcher Angelo Savelli and sculptors Andrea Cascella and Arnaldo Pomodoro — all respectable at best.) Yet, the framing also gets in the way of an otherwise well-informed view of a significant historical moment.
Conspiracy theories drove the original “scandal” story line, but the maneuvering to get the prize was actually business as usual. When something unexpected and dramatic occurs, like the Biennale’s American “first,” the creation of a conspiracy theory is one way to make at least a semblance of sense out of a seemingly inexplicable event. An irrational illusion of rational explanation, it provides a veil of stability in a topsy-turvy world.
Rauschenberg’s anointing was all too much for those who simply could not fathom that Paris — fountainhead of Picasso, Matisse, Miro, Brancusi and even Duchamp — had been toppled on the international cultural stage by a supposedly vulgar, Texas-born parvenu who silkscreened commercial images of President Kennedy and phallic rocket ships onto canvas and famously slathered paint on the nose of a stuffed goat (“Monogram,” 1955-59). A cultural crime had occurred. Guilt needed to be ascribed. Conspiracies mushroomed.
The story of what actually went on in the run-up to the prize is certainly complicated. For clarity, Wallach smartly crafts the film around four primary players, starting of course with “The Artist.” A thumbnail of his artistic bio unfolds.
Then there’s “The Dealer,” Leo Castelli, a suave and affable Italian expatriate to New York who engineered the rise of American Pop, including Rauschenberg, to commercial success. Raised in Trieste, across the Adriatic from Venice, he also understood the European fascination with the democratic capitalism represented by Pop’s soup cans, Hollywood celebrity and comic strips, as postwar rebuilding relied on American commercial goods. That the gallery operated by Ileana Sonnabend, Castelli’s Romanian ex-wife, was located in Paris didn’t hurt.
“The Insider” is Alice Denney, a Washington, D.C., art maven, wife of a State Department lawyer, and friend of the Kennedy family. (Denney died in November at 101.) For the first time, the United States government was helping sponsor the privately operated American Pavilion in Venice, as foreign governments always did theirs. When a boost was needed, like getting a military cargo plane to transport large-scale art across the Atlantic, Denney was on hand to push the necessary buttons.
Finally, “The Commissioner” organizing the American presence at the Biennale was Alan Solomon. He had turned Manhattan’s Jewish Museum into an avant-garde hothouse during his brief tenure as director, from 1962 to 1964, including with solo shows of Rauschenberg and his former lover, Jasper Johns. Solomon, not well-known today, was a Harvard-educated bon vivant known for his erudition in new art’s European history. In 1970, when he died of a heart attack at 49, just a few months after the opening of his last exhibition, “Painting in New York: 1944–1969,” at the Pasadena Art Museum, he was chairman of the adventurous new art department at UC Irvine.
“Taking Venice” re-creates a last-minute move of big Robert Rauschenberg paintings via water taxis to the Giardini.
(Zeitgeist Films)
The artist, the dealer, the insider, the commissioner — the complexities of getting the Venice presentation together are clearly laid out in the film. Appropriate nods are also given to familiar elements of cultural context, which contributed to the ultimate commotion.
The list is long. Rauschenberg’s controversial work had been categorized as Dada-inspired “anti-art.” The sponsoring U.S. government had well-established Cold War propaganda interests. Solomon’s show was too large for the relatively small American Pavilion, so a rules-busting annex was pressed into service in the empty former U.S. consulate next to Peggy Guggenheim’s palazzo-museum on the Grand Canal, adding to a sense of superpower pushiness. International resistance was greeting President Lyndon B. Johnson’s expansion of U.S. military presence in Indochina, which chipped away at global sympathy in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. Sam Hunter, an influential American art historian, was an eleventh-hour addition to the prize jury. At Venice’s legendary Teatro La Fenice, a last-minute all-American avant-garde dance performance by Merce Cunningham and John Cage with sets by Rauschenberg was a wild success. And much more.
Still, all of that was merely packing the dynamite. For an explosion, the fuse needed lighting. It was Solomon who brought the matches.
The Grand Prize selection was always the result of obscure dealings among influential partisans in smoke-filled backrooms, but Solomon drew an aggressive public line in the sand. As the deadlocked jury deliberated privately, he held a press conference and distributed an official statement. Headed “Americans in Venice” — printed all in caps — the sheet featured a tourist photo of the ancient Rialto Bridge spanning the Grand Canal juxtaposed with a three-tiered painting of an American flag by Johns.
In case the pictorial story of crossing a Rubicon was not enough, the blunt text declared, “The fact that the world art center has shifted from Paris to New York is acknowledged on every hand.” Venice’s celebrated Biennale, Solomon implied, risked irrelevance.
Rauschenberg’s ultimate selection certainly gave everyone something to talk about — and they did, often loudly. (The pick sowed “the seeds of a new fascism” in the opinion of one particularly outlandish review.) The artist himself was happy but anxious, soon deciding to destroy all the silk screens he had used to make his exhibited paintings so he couldn’t repeat himself. In retrospect, he observed of the new career pressures, “There were moments when I thought things would have been much better if I hadn’t been so lucky.”
But a conspiracy? Despite the film’s annoying musical score (by CheeWei Tay), which pulses furiously like it’s a B-movie melodrama, that’s nowhere to be found. The horse-trading vote feels more like the norm, which is interesting enough. Thanks to the internet and social media today, conspiracy theories have become epidemic, since the multitudes can now hear the same fantastical whispers of a rigged game en masse. (For details, Google “Jan. 6, 2021.”) Sixty years on, their ubiquity makes “Taking Venice” seem rather quaint.
Much of the story’s factual scaffolding was plainly provided by “The Great Migrator: Robert Rauschenberg and the Global Rise of American Art,” the critically acclaimed 2010 book by art historian Hiroko Ikegami. (She appears in the film to offer welcome narrative detail.) Sometimes the story wanders off into lengthy but unnecessary asides, including staged re-creations of the lightly comic difficulty in moving (faux) Rauschenberg paintings on water taxis, Sonnabend’s dealer adventures in Paris and the American Pavilion shows held in 2017, 2019 and 2022. At 98 minutes, “Taking Venice” is a half-hour too long.
Still, the story embedded within it is an important one. A historic shift did occur. The account is well-told and worth knowing, even without conspiratorial murmurs.
A sneak-peek of the film is scheduled for Thursday at the UCLA Hammer Museum, followed by a Q&A with the director. Wallach will do the same on Friday and Saturday nights at the Laemmle Royal in West L.A., where the film opens for a one-week run.
‘Taking Venice’
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Playing: Laemmle Royal, Santa Monica; Laemmle Town Center 5, Encino
The Invite is a remake of the Spanish film The People Upstairs, itself based on a play by the same director Cesc Gay. With all remakes, the question is: What’s this version bringing to the table. In this case, it’s a rock solid cast with great chemistry and some very snappy direction by Olivia Wilde.
Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Olivia Wilde) are a dysfunctional couple with some noisily amorous upstairs neighbours. They invite Hawk (Edward Norton) and Piña (Penélope Cruz) to dinner and hijinks ensue.
There’s a lot to like about The Invite. Each member of the cast is funny in their own way. Rogen plays his usual schlub but his character is more nuanced than usual, with the rapid-fire jokes masking a deep frustration and melancholy. Wilde‘s Angela is a persnickety neurotic, but it’s not hard to see why. Cruz plays a sultry therapist who’s in permanent flirt mode but is also holding something back. Norton steals the show with a quietly hilarious performance as a retired firefighter who is all too eager to share his new age insights. The way each person interacts with the other results in a rollercoaster of cringe comedy, acerbic satire and genuine gut-busters. This is a film that relies entirely on performance and actually succeeds.
The story itself is a little masterpiece. Adapted from Gay’s original by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, the dialogue is quick, laden with not-very-subtextual motivations and always up to something. It’s very even-handed, and all the characters are sympathetic but flawed in amusing ways. Watching the increasingly desperate Joe and Angela bouncing off the Hawk and Piña is both funny and excruciating. Joe’s attraction to Piña is played fairly straight, but Angela’s attraction to Hawk becomes side-splitting as she pours out her soul to his Zen-calm ears and gets responses that make her even more attracted to him and by the end she’s practically hyperventilating.
The Invite does take something of a turn towards the end, although the film is in a state of continual twist throughout. This final shift throws the couples’ dysfunction into stark terms but doesn’t ruin anything. In the end, it moves from a somewhat misanthropic tone to a sincere and compassionate one. It skillfully makes you complicit in Joe and Angela’s spatting and then forces you to reconsider. The comedy is so intense throughout the film that when this happens it might lose some viewers, but it’s well-earned, true to the characters and it’s a very satisfying payoff.
The Invite is a small film that feels like a return to a better era in cinema. It’s a remake that is worth watching for its performances, and it’s very, very funny. It’s the sort of film that can be watched at home given its confined setting, but it generates enough laughs that seeing with an audience is a real pleasure.
Entertainment
Jesús Ortiz Paz and Jimmy Humilde took their legal dispute to Instagram. Here’s the breakdown
What started off as a trailblazing music partnership between música mexicana band Fuerza Regida and L.A. label Rancho Humilde has now fizzled into a sticky online drama.
On Saturday, Fuerza Regida frontman Jesús Ortiz Paz, better known as JOP, took to his personal Instagram account to post a statement addressing the band’s ongoing legal battle with the independent label led by music mogul Jimmy Humilde, who signed the band in 2018.
“To everyone who supports Fuerza Regida, you deserve to hear our music,” Ortiz Paz wrote in a public statement. “You deserve to see us perform at the World Cup. You deserve to listen to us on the MLB [Major League Baseball] album.”
This statement, which has since disappeared from JOP’s Instagram post, alleged that music created by the música mexicana group “keeps disappearing.”
Among the songs that have been taken down from streaming platforms by Rancho Humilde are “Triston,” “Todos nos Shipean” and “67,” according to the band’s publicist.
In September 2025, Rancho Humilde filed a lawsuit against Fuerza Regida, alleging breaches of contract for unilaterally collaborating with artists outside the label — such as Chino Pacas and Drake — and signing exclusive live performance deals with Apple Music and Live Nation.
Fuerza Regida countersued, alleging that Rancho Humilde withheld millions in royalties and attempted to “sabotage” the band’s success, including by neglecting to submit its music for consideration ahead of the 2024 Latin Grammys.
The case is still making its way through the courts.
“Everyone knows [what’s] going on[.] [You see] it [in the] media, [that’s] why I’m going to let justice do its job, everyone is going to know who you really are,” the post by JOP continued in both English and Spanish. “[He who has nothing to hide has nothing to fear], go let [Jimmy Humilde] & [Rancho Humilde] know how you feel, make your voice heard. Our story isn’t over I promise.”
Humilde responded to the artist in the comment section shortly after the post was made public.
“You asked me for a bigger [deal], I got it done. You asked me for your [masters], I fought to make it happen. You wanted to become one of the biggest artists in the [world], I have everything I had to help build that dream,” wrote Humilde.
“When you needed help, I didn’t just bring business. I brought my lawyers, my doctors, my relationships, my time, and my heart. I stood by you when it mattered the most,” Humilde continued. “You walked away with the biggest check of your [life,] over $50 million. I never complained. I was happy to see you win because your success was our success.”
“What hurts is seeing everything we’ve built together reduced to a public narrative that doesn’t tell the whole story. If you believe people deserve the truth, then honor the agreement we made. Complete the contract the same way I honored every commitment I made to you. I never stopped looking out for you. I only ask that you do the same. [He who has nothing to hide has nothing to fear].”
In a separate comment — which Humilde uploaded to his own Instagram account with Fuerza Regida’s own song “El Dinero Los Cambio” (which describes how money can change someone) — the label head pushed back on allegations of robbery: “I robbed you? Robbed you of what, fool. You didn’t even have a dollar for me to rob.”
The music mogul also accused JOP — who founded his own label Street Mob Records in 2018 — of sabotaging his own bandmates. “Let’s talk about [how] your own band members went from partners to being employees. They didn’t have much of a choice.”
“And let’s not forget I helped you land a $15 million deal for your label. After that, how you choose to take care of your artists is on you. [Let’s] ask Chinito [Pacas], Calle [24] and Armenta!!” added Humilde, including the names of artists signed to Street Mob Records.
JOP of Fuerza Regida performs at South By Southwest on March 13 in Austin, Texas.
(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)
In an email to De Los, Humilde’s lawyer, Mike Trauben, pushed back on claims that Rancho Humilde is trying to stop Fuerza Regida from making music and obtaining other opportunities.
They cite two recent deals that were approved by Rancho Humilde, including Fuerza Regida’s appearance on “Grand Theft Auto” and in the online video game “Fortnite,” which aligns with the contractual framework both parties had negotiated.
With regards to the proposed MLB and FIFA collaborations, Humilde’s council said that Fuerza Regida sought to prevent Rancho Humilde from exercising its claimed contractual rights, which was ultimately denied by a federal court.
The reason certain songs were removed from streaming platforms is because Fuerza Regida chose to release music outside the agreed Rancho/Sony distribution structure and without the approvals required under the parties’ agreements, per Humilde’s lawyers.
“Ultimately, this case is not about stopping an artist from succeeding,” wrote Trauben to The Times. “It is about whether sophisticated parties are required to honor the agreements they voluntarily negotiated after success had already arrived.”
According to Trauben, Rancho Humilde and Fuerza Regida, both parties entered a completely new agreement in 2022 that fundamentally restructured their entire business relationship, fully terminating the initial 2018 contract in place. As a result, Fuerza Regida received a flat million-dollar bonus, Rancho Humilde converted its ownership of existing masters into a 50/50 structure and the two entered into a new agreement, which Humilde’s lawyers claim favors Fuerza Regida.
“This case is not about whether artists should have rights. They absolutely should. Nor is it about preventing Fuerza Regida from making music,” wrote Trauben. “Rather, this case asks a much broader question that affects the entire music industry: Do contracts still matter after artist success arrives?”
The Times reached out to Fuerza Regida’s attorney but did not hear back as of this publication.
NEW YORK (OSV News) – At what is meant to be a poignant moment in the DC Comics adaptation “Supergirl” (Warner Bros.), the title character, played by Milly Alcock, is told by her mother (Emily Beecham) that she doesn’t have to be nice but she must be good. The recipient of this advice takes it to heart in a way that lends the whole film an unpleasant tone.
We’re not talking Deadpool depths of obscene snark here. Yet scrappy Supergirl, aka Kara Zor-El, in contrast to her affable cousin — and fellow Kryptonian — Superman (David Corenswet), does not come across as especially likeable.
Nor is she a figure to be imitated since, before she embarks on the quest to which most of the running time is devoted, early scenes show her waking up with a succession of staggering hangovers. She gets blotto, we later learn, in an effort to blot out her troubled past. The only positive ingredient in her current life is the bond she shares with her beloved dog, Krypto.
So when evil alien Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts) wounds Krypto with a poisoned dart, leaving him with only hours to live, Supergirl is desperate to help the pup survive. Learning that Krem carries the antidote with him wherever he goes, she sets off on an interplanetary hunt for the villain, racing against time.
Supergirl has already crossed paths with another of Krem’s victims, Ruthye (Eve Ridley). Having watched as Krem slaughtered her entire family, Ruthye is out for revenge and wants to join forces with Supergirl.
Since Ruthye, though courageous, is undersized and completely untrained for combat, Supergirl initially tries to ditch her. But Ruthye is not to be so easily rebuffed.
The unlikely duo eventually acquire an informal ally in the person of cigar-chomping, motorcycle-riding freelance warrior Lobo (Jason Momoa). Lobo has reasons of his own for hating the band of brigands Krem leads.
As scripted by Ana Nogueira, director Craig Gillespie’s scifi adventure includes more than one exchange in which Supergirl warns Ruthye about the morally corrupting effects of exacting vengeance. Yet this thoroughly respectable ethical message is completely undermined as the action reaches its climax.
“Supergirl” may not be a dose of Kryptonite. But it’s no energy-infusing sunbath either.
The film contains much harsh but bloodless violence, a scene of urination, a passing reference to nonscriptural religious ideas, a couple of mild oaths, several uses each of crude and crass language and an obscene gesture. The OSV News classification is A-III – adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
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