[soft, eerie music playing]
[soft music playing]
[indistinct speaking]
[man 1] We have been placed
in a difficult
and disagreeable position.
[camera clicks]
Rumors of connivance
are spreading,
centered on
the last-minute movement
of the Rauschenberg paintings
to the American Pavilion.
The press response has been
indignation and hysteria.
[suspenseful music playing]
The public reaction:
Bewilderment.
This is indeed a nightmare,
because it is plain
that we could win the prize.
[man 2] The Venice Biennale
was the Olympics of art.
Each country would have
its own pavilion,
and show an artist
that competes against
all the others.
It was a big fiesta
of nationalism.
[man 3] 1964 was the first time
the American government
was involved.
It clearly had
a kind of ambition.
[woman 1] American agencies
sending art into Europe
had to make people wonder,
you know,
to what end could this be used?
[man 2] People were saying that
this was a nefarious plot
to make an American
the winner of the grand prize.
[woman 2] We didn't cheat.
We wanted to win the prize
and show that we had
some great art.
And we thought
with Rauschenberg
we had a very good chance.
[man 2] It changed the way
American art was perceived.
[soft music playing]
It also changed Rauschenberg.
[Robert] I had moments
where I thought
that everything
would be much better,
if I... if I hadn't
been so lucky.
[solemn music playing]
[water lapping]
[boat engine humming]
[boat horn honks]
[indistinct chatter]
[seagull calls]
[man 4] When I heard
that I was gonna do
the National Pavilion,
I started thinking,
"Where is actually
the border of America?"
Like, when does it start?
At the brick?
At the little bricks around it?
When you're inside?
And I just thought,
"I'm gonna just erase
the whole thing."
I'm just gonna dump
a bunch of gravel
so it looks like
an abandoned site.
People don't even know
that it's art.
And then the inside
is where the fun starts.
Perhaps the water and the paper
makes it very black.
I like to take something
that kind of exists
and have a metamorphosis go on.
But still,
some of the history
clings to it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[woman 3] Art is not
only about art,
it's also about power
and it's about politics.
When you have the power,
you show it through the art.
One of the intriguing subplots
of the Biennale
all through the decades,
more than a century,
has been how art
and politics overlap.
And it peaks, there's a kind
of high-altitude moment
with the American presence
in 1964.
It reverberates through history.
[energetic music playing]
[woman 4] Oh!
It's a long story.
I helped start
the Gallery of Modern Art
in Washington in '62.
My husband was intelligence
and research
in the State Department.
And we knew the Kennedys
from way back, way back.
This was the first year that
the United States government
was behind the show
at the Venice Biennale.
And it fell to USIA.
[majestic music playing]
[man 5] United States
Information Agency
had been created to persuade
the rest of the world
that liberal democracy
was a better way of life
than the dictatorship
or authoritarian alternatives.
[engines roaring, cheering]
[man 6] The United States
is in the midst
of the Cold w*r
with the Soviet Union.
[Louis] We thought the future
of humanity was at stake.
[man 6] We had to go out
and win hearts and minds.
[news broadcasts play
in various languages]
[Louis] There's a kind
of cultural Cold w*r.
[singing in Russian]
[majestic music playing]
[mellow jazz music playing]
America had to show
that it was not just a country
of cars and bubblegum,
that it was a country
in which serious art,
serious literature,
could be created.
[soft, suspenseful music
playing]
[man 6] And so USIA were
looking for cultural weapons,
guided missiles,
something that they can take,
and they can use,
and it will hit
a specific target.
And the big stage for art
was the Venice Biennale.
No American had ever won
the international prize
for painting.
[in Italian]
[suspenseful music playing]
[man 7] The government had
had no previous involvement
in that field at all.
So the Venice Biennale
was an interesting question,
which the agency
had never faced before.
How do we choose the person
to put this exhibition together?
[Alice] I knew the head
of the Fine Arts Department
of USIA quite well.
So I suggested, I said,
"Why don't you go
and interview Alan Solomon?"
He was everywhere in New York.
I just thought he was
very knowledgeable, young,
new on the scene.
[Calvin] And Solomon
made a beeline for Castelli.
[woman 3] Leo Castelli was known
as a successful,
ambitious art dealer,
but also a kind of, you know,
how do you call it...
Castelli was
an ultimately cosmopolitan man.
He was a Jewish,
Italian from Trieste.
He was at home anywhere he was.
[Calvin] Castelli liked Alan
immediately.
[Leo] He was a professor
of art history
at Cornell University.
And, uh, he appeared one day
at my gallery.
He had a hearing aid
and a ready-made suit.
But he was
terribly enthusiastic
about art that was happening
in America.
He had total knowledge of it.
And he also understood
right away
what was happening
under his nose,
not like many others.
So anyway,
he became the director
of the Jewish Museum.
[Calvin] The Jewish Museum
wasn't really known
for contemporary art.
They had some shows,
but they weren't shows
that anybody I knew went to.
[funky music playing]
All of a sudden, there was
this young, savvy director.
[indistinct chatter, laughter]
And he turned it
into a red-hot center
of contemporary art.
[Leo] This shy,
rather withdrawn man
that had appeared, say,
back in '58 at the gallery,
had undergone an operation
which made it unnecessary
for him to have a hearing aid.
His clothes
were custom-tailored.
He had become
a very elegant man
with a great deal of authority.
[Calvin] And the person he chose
for his debut exhibition
was this
amazingly advanced artist,
Robert Rauschenberg.
[vibrant rock music playing]
He had been the bte noire
of the American
art establishment
for about 10 years.
Most of the artists
of the older generation
felt he wasn't serious,
that he wasn't a serious artist,
that his stuff
was too haphazard,
too jokey, too of the moment.
[Robert] I was
considered a clown
by nearly everyone else.
And not just a clown,
that's not true,
but like a novelty.
[man 8] Rauschenberg's work
was literally branded
"anti-art."
[funky music playing]
Critics couldn't imagine
why people would want
to illustrate junk this way.
[vibrant rock music playing]
[Calvin] Rauschenberg's
retrospective
at the Jewish Museum
was such a bombshell.
It was like a flash
of lightning.
Bang, bang, bang.
[Leo] That Rauschenberg show
was a tremendous event.
You can't imagine
the fantastic impact
that it had,
favorable and, uh,
mostly unfavorable.
[sphere whirring]
The daring of Alan Solomon
seemed absolutely incredible.
[Hiroko]
[soft, tense music playing]
[Ed] I guess he was
a little nervous
because I don't think
he had ever dealt
with the bureaucracy
of the U.S. government before.
And that's where Alice came in.
[Alice] Alan said,
"Well, Alice, you can be
the vice commissioner."
That's how I became involved.
[Calvin] He immediately knew
that he wanted Rauschenberg
to be the first American to win
the international prize
for painting.
[Hiroko] So from the outset,
he really started planning
the agenda,
how to win this game.
[energetic music playing]
[typewriter clacking]
[Alice] This was
our first chance
to make a statement
from the United States
government.
We wanted to win the prize
and show that we had
some great art.
And we thought
with Rauschenberg,
we had a very good chance.
[Calvin] Rauschenberg seemed
like the most American
of all the American artists.
[lively music playing]
There was sort of a joyous,
unconstrained energy about it.
[announcer] So stay on the go
and remember Coca-Cola
is on the go with you
everywhere.
[Calvin] His work
just overflowed
with American references
and American confidence.
[announcer] As the Yankees win
by a 10-0 margin.
[man] T-minus 15 minutes
and counting.
There will be no smoking
in the block house
until further notice.
Status Check. Pressure's a go.
Godspeed, John Glenn.
[flames roaring]
[indistinct chatter]
[flames billowing]
[Alice] It was
a very exciting time,
of course, of course.
[surf music playing]
[JFK] Let the word go forth
from this time and place,
to friend and foe alike,
that the torch has been passed
to a new generation
of Americans.
[cheering, applause]
[Alice] Here we have
this wonderful young guy
in the White House,
and, you know,
everything was very up,
and we had great hopes.
[JFK] I see
little of more importance
to the future of our country,
than full recognition
of the place of the artist.
[Louis] John F. Kennedy
had a genuine appreciation
of the role that art played
in cultural diplomacy,
partly 'cause of the influence
of his wife on his own tastes,
which I don't think were
particularly culturally
sophisticated.
We in the United States
are grateful for this loan
from the leading artistic power
in the world: France.
[interviewer] Mrs. Kennedy,
do you think that
there's a relationship
between the government
and the arts?
That's so complicated.
I don't know.
I just think that everything
in the White House
should be the best.
[sewing machine whirring]
[Michael] By the early 1960s,
the United States
is in the midst
of a tremendous boom.
[Louis] There was
all this opportunity
and money available
to invent things in a new way.
It's very rare
in cultural history
that there are moments
like that when people think,
"Oh, we could do it this way,
let's try it."
[protester] We are seeking
recognition, equality.
We are seeking
our human dignity.
[Betty Friedan] There is
a terrible contempt for women.
Women have minds
as well as breasts!
[indistinct chanting]
[applause]
[Louis] And these
social changes are paralleled
by all kinds
of creative innovations.
[lively music playing]
[announcer] What's new?
Everything.
[Achim] For Rauschenberg's
generation,
there was a real sense
that you could remake the world
and you could make
a much better world.
This was really, in a way,
the Promised Land.
[woman 6] We danced.
We danced all the time.
In the early days,
there wasn't a week
where we didn't dance.
Somebody had an old jukebox
or records,
and it was the core
of New York City art life.
[man 9] We're very interested
in existing in our own time,
which is now.
To take advantage
of whatever is happening
at this particular moment.
[Achim] It was a period,
really, of great optimism.
But very soon,
it all comes apart.
[somber music playing]
[hooves clopping]
[Calvin] Alan Solomon
was on his way to Europe
to meet with
the Biennale officials
when he learned
of Kennedy's assassination.
He was stunned.
He didn't know
whether to turn around
and go back home.
[as Alan] To Mr. Leo Castelli
et al.,
Sunday, November 24th, 1963.
[soft, tense music playing]
What will happen
to all our schemes now?
I'll get some inkling
in Rome on Tuesday.
He thought, "Well,
that's the end of Venice."
You know,
we thought the whole thing
would just collapse.
But the USIA was so determined
to have this happen.
I certainly wanted it
to continue,
and I know if Jack Kennedy
had been alive,
he would have loved the idea.
It was our moment.
And the government
was behind the show.
[Philip] 1964 was the first time
that the American government got
behind
the American presence
in the Venice Biennale.
It was standard with
all the other pavilions.
[Michael] All of
the other pavilions
had been built
by their governments:
The British, the French,
even the Soviets.
[mellow music playing]
We didn't have that.
What we had was a pavilion
that had been built
back in the 1920s or '30s
by a New York consortium
of galleries.
[Calvin] Solomon was horrified
when he first laid his eyes
on the U.S. Pavilion
in the Biennale grounds
because it was so small
and so pitifully inadequate
as a place to show art.
So, Solomon asked
the Biennale officials
if it would be possible
for him to show
some of the works
in a different location.
And the head
of the Biennale Commission
said that would be all right.
[as Alan] They accepted,
in principle,
the idea
of a precedent-setting annex
outside the grounds
to make a larger
American exhibition possible.
[Philip] He was a kind
of visionary.
And he understood
that the pavilion was small
and that you needed more space
for no fewer than eight artists
in order to represent them
properly.
[energetic music playing]
He imagined a very large show.
[camera clicks]
[Calvin] He began looking
for possible places.
[camera clicks]
[Philip] As it happened,
the American Consulate
in Venice had closed
under the Kennedy
administration,
and it was empty.
[camera clicks]
[Calvin] The Consulate
was a wonderful building
right on the Grand Canal
right next to
the Peggy Guggenheim Palazzo.
He said, "This'll be perfect."
[soft, tense music playing]
[as Alan] We finally
arranged to use
the empty American Consulate.
There was
a clear verbal agreement
among the Venetians
and the Americans
about eligibility for prizes.
When I left,
I asked Mr. Barjansky,
as our local representative
in Italy,
to get these arrangements
in writing,
which was not done.
[soft music playing]
We went ahead and arranged
an exhibition
based on the available space
and the agreed terms.
[Calvin] He took
the measurements of the rooms,
and went back and began
planning the exhibition.
From the very beginning,
he wanted Rauschenberg
to be the first American
to win the international prize
for painting.
[dramatic music playing]
That was his real,
decisive goal.
[energetic music playing]
There was an exhibition
in the U.S. Pavilion,
of abstract paintings.
But all of the really new
and exciting works
were in the American Consulate.
Works by four younger artists:
Claes Oldenburg, Frank Stella,
Jim Dine, and John Chamberlain.
But it was dominated
by these very large paintings
by Rauschenberg,
and smaller
but more mysterious paintings
by Jasper Johns.
[suspenseful music playing]
[music fades]
[Louis] Oh my God!
When Johns and Rauschenberg
came along,
the two of them really rocked
the art world.
[soft music playing]
[distant horn blares]
They get together in 1954.
Rauschenberg was working
as a janitor
at the Stable Gallery,
which is on Seventh Avenue,
and Johns was working
at a bookstore.
And they ran into each other
on the street.
[Jasper] He was working
on the Red Paintings.
That's what I saw first.
[bright music playing]
It was real.
It was working with materials,
and out of those materials,
ideas arose.
It wasn't about making
a successful image.
There was no preconception
of an image in the way
that I had thought of art
in the past.
[soft music playing]
[traffic humming]
[Robert] ...These were the days
when I had a budget
of 25 cents a day for food.
New York was, I thought,
so incredibly rich
in materials.
I started--instead of going
to the paint store
or anyplace else,
I would just walk around
the block,
and if I didn't have enough
to start work,
if I walked around one block,
I walked around another block.
I looked up to him
in every way.
He was an artist.
I thought of myself
as "going to be an artist."
[Robert] The thing
that made us get along
was the fact that we were
so different ourselves.
I, uh, I don't know
what ought to be done.
I guess one simply does
what one does.
[interviewer] Is it your theory
not to have a theory?
[laughs]
Yes, more or less.
I would go out on the streets
and get everything.
And he would shut the windows.
[Jasper] But we understood
one another very well
and depended on one another
because we were outside
of the art world,
as it were.
[Louis] They were very discreet
about their relationship.
Always.
It was quite clear
they were lovers.
Sodomy was not legal
in New York State.
On the other hand,
many of the figures
in the New York art world
were g*y.
And their getting together
romantically
also meant
collaborating artistically
with fantastic results
for both of them.
[energetic music playing]
[Jasper] We were familiar with
what the other was doing,
almost down to a brush stroke.
[Calvin] They were able
to encourage one another
at a time when neither
was getting any encouragement
from anybody else.
[Louis] In 1954, they both
had their breakthroughs.
That's the year
Rauschenberg started
doing the combines.
And that's the year that Johns
did the American flag painting.
[Jasper] Oh, we had great times.
Amazing things happened.
So there was room
for mischief and joy.
What could I do today?
What would be fun?
What shouldn't I do?
I think I'll do that.
[laughs]
[Robert] On some levels,
it was joyful.
On some levels, it was...
Was it frightening?
I'm not sure.
It was certainly necessary.
[Calvin] It was a very intense
friendship, incandescent.
Just--they would
set off sparks.
[Louis] They clearly inspired
each other.
They made each other
take their work
to a different level.
[music stops]
-So the little one here can
move down.
-Okay
Got it.
[man] Not that it matters.
This can can also spin
on its axis,
-but that's not something
[man] No, I didn't know that.
conservation likes us
to do anymore.
[man] Right.
[Robert] When I first started
doing the paintings
that were three-dimensional,
people would say
that they're not paintings,
They're sculpture.
[energetic choral vocalizing]
And then
if I called them sculpture,
they would say
that they weren't sculpture,
that they were more paintings.
So then I thought,
"Well, I'll just
call them combines."
And from then on,
"Oh, it's a combine."
[Calvin] All of a sudden you
have something which is not
painting,
which is not sculpture,
which cannot be explained.
It just hits you
right in the eye.
It was considered offensive.
People thought that
he was thumbing his nose
at the seriousness of painting.
[singing stops]
[man] I think scorn is really
a much too feeble word to apply.
I would say hatred
and fear are,
in varying degrees,
are really much more accurate.
[soft indistinct chatter]
Most people dislike
what they don't understand.
Or rather, what they think
they ought to understand,
and don't.
[soft music playing]
[Robert] In the 1950s,
Rauschenberg was not
a declarative,
argumentative political artist.
But merely the fact of thinking
that the present was important
was a political statement
at that time.
[soft, suspenseful music
playing]
It was an attempt
to show respect
for things as they are.
[bright music playing]
I mean, Monogram with that
goat,
what can you say?
[soft music playing]
The idea of encountering
a goat in the visual arts?
You didn't see
anything like that before,
and we were looking for stuff
that we hadn't seen before.
[soft music playing]
[Calvin] A lady was standing
in front of Monogram
and she said,
"What is the reason for this?
Is this supposed to be art?"
And he said, "Well, you know,
you're wearing a mink coat,
but I could call it
the skin of a dead animal.
And you've got feathers
on your head.
There are a lot of things
that could be described
in different ways."
And she said,
"I think I see what you mean."
He said later,
"I had the feeling
that she wasn't just
being angry or mean,
she was really
trying to find out."
And I think a lot of people
sort of got it
in a way that
they hadn't before
about Rauschenberg and
the generation of the 1960s.
[lively music playing]
[Ed] These artists,
the Rauschenbergs, the Johns,
were revolutionizing
the art world.
[soft music playing]
But I didn't know a thing
about American art
before all this happened.
I would have had
a hard time distinguishing
Grandma Moses from Picasso.
[whooshing sound]
[soft, tense music playing]
[tapping at keys, chatter]
I was a graduate student,
and I was lucky enough
to get a job as a summer intern
in the Fine Arts Division
of the USIA.
We represented,
I thought, the good guys,
and that's certainly
what motivated me.
But the budget that we had
from Congress was miniscule.
And the paintings
were so outsized,
we had to figure out how
to transport this exhibition.
We couldn't afford
a regular transport plane.
[Ed] Alice was not daunted
by what I think would have been
insurmountable challenges
to a lot of other people.
Her husband, George Denney,
was the head
of the intelligence operation
at the State Department.
[Alice] And it worked
out very well
because, you know,
George being in the government.
I knew how to maneuver
getting the work over there.
[Ed] USIA was able to persuade
the Department of Defense
to provide the plane for us.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Alice] We got the Army plane!
[Ed] It was enormous.
It's wild. I mean you could
have driven trucks
up into these planes,
and I guess they did.
[Alice] So, Ed McBride
came over with the show.
[Ed] Well, yours truly
actually got on the airplane,
and there were
no seats in it as such.
We had these
kind of basket things.
It was like riding
in a coffee grinder.
It was extremely noisy.
[roar of engine]
But it was...
it was a big adventure too.
This huge plane couldn't come
into the regular airport.
A little problem there.
[Ed] We landed at
the Air Force base in Aviano.
They opened the front
of the aircraft
and Alice and Alan Solomon
were there to meet us.
[Hiroko]
The sight itself is
kind of like a spectacle.
[Calvin] There was this feeling,
the State Department must have
something to do,
seems to be playing some role
in this nefarious plot
to make an American
the winner of the grand prize.
[plodding music playing]
[Alice] There was
no conspiracy.
We couldn't afford
a regular plane.
[auctioneer] Three of you
in the game here,
and anybody else
that would like to jump in.
The Rauschenberg,
showing here at 63--
$64 million is bid.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Irving] It's so hard today
with the market
as bizarre as it is
to understand that there
wasn't really an art market
until 1958.
[jazzy music playing]
It began when
the Metropolitan Museum of Art
bought their Jackson Pollock
painting for $30,000.
We didn't believe it!
And the market sort of opens,
but Leo was
very much part of that.
[Leo] After the opening
of my gallery in '57,
I was looking for new people
who would have
something new to say
in a new era.
[Irving] He was
an amazing dealer.
Quite amazing.
[Jasper] I heard that
Bill de Kooning had said
about Leo,
"That son of a b*tch, you could
give him two beer cans
and he could sell them."
So, uh, I made this work.
I did it,
and, uh...
Leo sold it!
[laughing]
Oh, Leo was a charmer.
[chuckling]
Most charming man I've ever met.
He was a very sweet man,
very gentle man, very polite.
Extremely polite.
So elegant and so worldly.
[Leo] But I was
at the same time
very arrogant
and very ambitious.
[Irving] And his gallery became
the gallery of
this new generation.
["Dieu Est-Il Pop?" playing]
[Alice] It was
a very wonderful time.
This young group of artists
popped up from nowhere.
It was a generation
that just popped up.
[woman singer] Suis-je pop
Es-tu pop
Pop est-il
Dieu est-il
Pop, pop, pop
[Louis] Pop artists like Warhol
were making art
out of the ordinary materials
of consumer culture,
packaging, labeling, signage.
It's very easy
for people to enjoy it.
It's not complicated.
[woman singer] Suis-je pop
Es-tu pop
Pop est-il
Dieu est-il
[Calvin] The old
art establishment
was being pushed aside
by this whole new thing.
I mean, it was so new!
[Robert] The art scene
that was going on
shocked everybody.
I mean, it shocked
the artists that were doing it.
Artists like Johns
and Rauschenberg
opened the way to Pop art
because of their incorporation
of found objects
and household objects.
So they were, pioneers,
precursors of Pop art.
In Europe it was so new,
it was so invigorating.
They really went for it.
They felt that
these were new ideas.
[Calvin] Ileana Sonnabend had
been married to Leo Castelli.
And when they got divorced,
she started her own
gallery in Paris.
[Alice] She was braver than Leo.
She was more avant-garde.
[in Italian]
[indistinct chatter]
[Irving] Ileana was Castelli's
partner in Europe,
and they were a powerful duo.
[Calvin] Leo Castelli
and Ileana Sonnabend
and the big promoters
of Rauschenberg
were sort of counting on Venice
to establish his reputation
at a much higher level
than it had been.
I'm Barbaralee Diamonstein,
and our celebrated
guests today
are artist Robert Rauschenberg
and his dealer, Leo Castelli.
"Dealer"?
-[scattered laughter]
-Friend.
-Friend and dealer.
-No. Friend!
It's doubtful
if the art of the '60s
would have looked
quite the way it did...
[Calvin] Bob made Leo
uncomfortable.
He was so untamed,
uncontrollable.
You love art, you live art,
you are art, you do art.
But you're just
doing something.
[Calvin] He made Leo nervous.
...had done anything
in art until then.
[Calvin] But once Leo
committed to him,
there was no doubt that
he was completely convinced.
I wonder if there is something
you'd both clarify for us,
and I'm thinking about
an event that took place
in 1964 at the Venice Biennale
amid a swirl of rumors,
most of them relating, Leo,
to your activities.
[jazzy music playing]
[Calvin] The center
of the gossip
and the deal-making and
the politics of the Biennale
was the Caf Florian
on the Piazza San Marco.
The two epicenters were
Leo Castelli's
regular cafe table,
where he would go at noon
and at 5:00 every day.
And the other epicenter
was presided over
by Ileana Sonnabend.
[funky music playing]
[Philip] Ileana Sonnabend
launched a kind of
Europe-wide
communications campaign
announcing Rauschenberg's
presence in Venice.
I don't think this had
ever been done before.
Now, it's standard.
Every gallery is promoting
their own artists.
But then, it was quite new,
and I think,
probably above all,
the French were shocked
by the apparent commercialism
to promote Robert Rauschenberg.
[Calvin] Old-timers
at the Biennale
thought that she was in league
with Leo to steal the Biennale.
They looked on Leo
as sort of an evil genius,
like a Svengali
manipulating things.
But it was Solomon's idea
from the very beginning
that he thought he could
win the prize for Rauschenberg.
Castelli was his counselor,
Solomon's consigliere.
["America" playing]
There was a lot
of energy building up
and excitement about
the American Pavilion.
You could feel it in the cafes
around San Marco.
Bands played songs
from West Side Story.
American art was
becoming triumphant.
[funky music playing]
[laughter, glasses clinking]
[Leo] Something that we had,
all of us there--
Ileana, myself, Alan--
was total faith, you know?
Total enthusiasm.
And that's, uh...
-In the entire scene, though.
-Yeah.
I wasn't your pet.
It's not that
we were coolly thinking,
well, "Here is a show,
maybe he can get the prize,"
and things like that.
We just took it for granted
that he had to get that prize.
We just believed in it.
[Calvin] Rauschenberg had been
working a few years before this
on color silkscreens
printed up for himself
of magazine illustrations,
diagrams, sports events,
architectural designs,
front pages of the Daily News,
all sorts of things.
He would lay these down
on large canvases
in different colors
in a way that no other artist
in my experience has ever done.
He had a sense of juxtaposition,
one thing against
another that just...
You held your breath
when you looked at it.
It was so inappropriate,
and yet completely
appropriate at the same time.
[Ed] When Alan Solomon
was commissioned by USIA,
we gave him carte blanche
to do what he thought was
the most appropriate exhibition.
We weren't in any way
controlling the shots
or calling what they could
or couldn't do.
[soft, tense music playing]
[Michael] But the paintings
were all supposed to send
a message about America,
about freedom, about freedom
of choice, freedom of speech.
[clicking, tape hissing]
[interviewer] So there
really was a concern
on the part of federal agencies
about the image abroad
that American art would create?
[woman] Absolutely.
We could not use
in our exhibitions
any artist who had not been
cleared, so to speak.
If anyone was on the House
Un-American Activities list,
uh-uh, they were out.
At that time,
if anyone found out
that we were censoring
an art exhibition...
we would have been finished.
[swing music playing]
[Michael] A lot of the
"messages," quote-unquote,
that we sent with
a lot of our cultural programs
that "We're not
a r*cist society,
civil rights isn't
a problem here,"
were really not
reflective of America.
They were reflective, perhaps,
of the America
that people wanted to exist,
that they wanted people
to believe existed
in the United States.
[pensive music playing]
[echoed machine g*nf*re]
[helicopter blades whirring]
[echoed marching music playing]
[Valerie] American agencies
sending art into Europe
had to make people wonder,
you know,
to what end could this be used?
[tense music playing]
There was a certain
level of suspicion
about what the Americans
were doing,
how the Americans
were infiltrating
world culture and politics.
[whimsical music playing]
[announcer speaking Italian]
[somber music playing]
[Christo] There was a huge
resistance to begin with
to American artists.
Now, I don't know what was true,
but probably it's true,
Leo called Sam Hunter.
You know the story?
[funky music playing]
Leo was saying
they should invite Sam Hunter
to join the jury.
There were seven judges
for the prizes,
each from a different country.
And one of Solomon's plans
was to get an American
on the board
for the first time ever.
Sam Hunter was something
of a star at that time.
He was really
on the crest of a wave.
He was American commissioner
for the Sao Paolo Biennale,
he curated the American section
of the World's Fair of Seattle.
Very nice guy,
super enthusiastic.
[Calvin] Because of the
excitement over Rauschenberg,
they managed to get
the head of the judges
to name Sam Hunter
as one of the jurors.
That was the kind
of political engineering
that people said,
"This was all Castelli."
[Leo] The prizes
at the Biennale
obey the same laws that prevail
when you have
a political election.
The great number of currents,
undercurrents,
maneuvers, and so on.
It's the same thing.
It is a very political affair.
[Christo] Sam Hunter was flown
from New York to Venice
to give the prize
to Rauschenberg.
[Calvin] There was undoubtedly
extremely high pressure
from Castelli getting
his friends and people
to try to influence the judges.
I knew the jurors.
People said, "Oh, Alice is
just seducing all the jurors."
Well, believe me,
that would have taken
a lot of seducing!
[soft, tense music playing]
[Calvin] In the midst
of all of this excitement,
Alan Solomon had been informed
that he had misunderstood
the head of
the Biennale committee,
Mr. Marcazzan.
[Alice] We had a guarantee
that if we put artists
in the consulate,
they could win the prize.
[Philip] Then comes
along a brand-new president
of the Biennale,
Mario Marcazzan.
And, oh, no, he didn't think
it was at all proper
that somebody who is not fully
exhibited in the Giardini
should win the prize.
[Christo] And the jury
was stuck,
because they would like
to give the prize
to Rauschenberg,
but according to the law
of the Venice Biennale,
they should have more work
of that artist in the Pavilion.
[Calvin] Sam Hunter was
arguing ferociously
with his colleagues
about this issue
and trying to make them promise
that they would
go to the exhibition
that Alan Solomon
had hung them in
outside of
the Biennale grounds.
[Philip] He had to convince
the other jury members
to get out of the Giardini
and take the vaporetto
all the way up the Grand Canal
to visit the US Consulate.
Well, they were reluctant.
They weren't sure that
they had the authorization.
This went on
for two or three days.
I remember, there was
the waiting for the decision.
There was the postponing
of the decision.
It was very funny.
[as Alan] The first ballot gave
Rauschenberg a majority,
but the jury hesitated
at establishing a precedent
by giving the prize
to an artist whose work,
except for one picture,
was outside the Giardini.
This issue was particularly
important to us,
because I felt for some time
that our chances
of winning a prize were high.
[Calvin] Alan Solomon
was a remarkable guy.
He looked and he behaved
like an Italian.
I don't know
how he managed this.
[lilting music playing]
He spoke a bit of Italian,
and it'd gotten much better
every day that he was there.
I thought his manner
was sort of silky, almost.
He seemed to be like what
the Italians called a manofino.
He had a fine hand
in his aggression.
[Alice] He wanted to win!
In general, he was a little
aggressive over there,
but people were pushing him too.
He thought if
we did this right,
this would go around the world
as a great thing.
[as Alan] The fact that
the world art center
has shifted from Paris
to New York
is acknowledged on every hand.
[dramatic music playing]
[Philip] He stated it
as something obvious.
And this enraged above all
the French.
They felt despoiled
of their primacy,
which had really prevailed
all through the Biennales
from 1948 onwards.
[Calvin] The French
had dominated
contemporary art in Europe,
and there were
a lot of French artists
who stood to lose a great deal
if it was perceived that
the center of the art world
was no longer Paris.
[Hiroko]
[Philip] These newcomers,
these vulgar characters
from across the pond,
had really affronted
European sensibilities.
They objected furiously
to the huge, swarming party
at the US Consulate...
[funky music playing]
...which is really the first
of those Biennale parties
when everybody
thinks they're invited,
and they all crush into the
door,
and everyone inside
wants to get out
and everyone who's outside
wants to get in.
[chatter, glasses clinking]
[Alice] Bronfman, who was
the big bourbon king,
wanted to come
to the Vernissage,
and I said, "Well,
there aren't any more tickets."
He said, "I've got
to come to the Vernissage."
I said, "Well, send us
cartons of bourbon,"
which he did,
and Alan said, "Bourbon?
The Italians
don't like bourbon!"
And they drank it like water!
It was a party 'round the clock
at the Consulate.
[Hiroko]
[Kenneth] It begins
to get more difficult
because I don't start
from any specific place,
like, say, the center.
[dramatic music playing]
[Calvin] It wasn't that
he was against Noland,
but he didn't want to give in
to some more
conservative factions
that wanted something
more easily palatable
than Rauschenberg's unmade beds
and animals
and eagles.
Alan had this
absolute certainty
that Rauschenberg was
a far more important artist
and that it was
his work that was really
the most representative
of the new in art.
[Hiroko]
[spare percussive music playing]
[Robert] My early
admirers in painting
were dancers and musicians,
and I think they may still be
my best admirers.
[ethereal music playing]
I found a lot more rapport
with their ideas
about what art was
than I did
with a lot of painters.
[Calvin] Bob grew up in
a strictly evangelical family.
Dance was against God's wishes.
But dancing was one
of the things he loved to do.
[spare music playing]
At Black Mountain,
he met John Cage
and Merce Cunningham.
It was a very unusual place,
which was way ahead of its time
in the sense
of avant-garde art.
[Merce] Black Mountain was such
a different kind of place
that it's not that one would
always expect something odd,
but if something odd came along,
that was perfectly all right.
It's the place
where Rauschenberg did
his first all-white paintings.
[Robert] I wanted
to see how far
one can push
a truth like that.
I came into the art world
absolutely nude with those.
[Irving] Everyone said,
"Look, they're just all white,
it's just white canvas,"
and he said, "No, you know,
shadows will fall."
And it was what was out there
that was actually creating
the image in the work.
[Calvin] Cage did a piece
soon afterwards,
a silent piece of music,
in which a pianist
sat down at a piano,
raised the lid over the keys,
and sat for
4 minutes, 33 seconds.
[no audio]
[Irving] It was silence,
but of course,
there was no silence.
There were airplane noises,
insects buzzing,
people shuffling
in their places,
sometimes rioting.
John's idea was
really very simple.
It was life out there that was
creating the music.
[Robert] John Cage
said that he never
would have had to have known me
because I was so much like him.
[Calvin] They were
all unknowingly
on the same wavelength.
[Achim] And Rauschenberg
became the set designer
and the costume designer
for the Merce Cunningham
Dance Company.
[spare music playing]
[Robert] Merce never knew
what he was going
to see that night
or when it was going to happen,
which interested me.
[Merce] I said, "Bob, I want
to wear a chair on my back
in one of the dances."
He said, "If you have a chair,
can I have a door?"
And I said,
"Certainly, why not?"
[laughing]
Bob has managed to take
some really
quite common object,
and in some way,
by the way he places it
or what he does with it,
he dramatizes it.
[Robert] It was the most
exciting collaboration
and most real,
because nobody knew
what anybody else was doing
until it was too late.
[rapid drum music playing]
I can't work in a collaboration
without an unduly
amount of respect.
[tense music playing]
And out of that respect,
I think that you do enter
into the person's psyche.
I have to sort of love
somebody to work with them.
And that immediately...
is a tie.
[woman] That's a wrap, guys.
[Robert] That's a wrap,
if I ever saw one!
Isn't it?
[laughing]
[soft, tense music playing]
[Hiroko]
[Alice] Bob was traveling
with the company.
And we knew that he was
on his way to Japan.
[paper softly ripping]
And so we brought
Merce Cunningham to Venice.
[birds squawking]
[water lapping]
[Calvin] It was considered
a diabolical trick.
People were saying that
this was a United States plot
to try to gain attention
for Rauschenberg.
[Robert] I was over there
working for Merce Cunningham.
He had a performance--
And you knew
both Cunningham and Cage
-from your Black Mountain days.
-I was working for 'em.
Yeah, and, you know,
like I just happened
to be on the scene...
and wandering around there.
[Calvin] It was the kind
of thing that got politicized
in Venice, and it heightened
the passions on both sides.
There were people
who thought that Rauschenberg
was the end of civilization
as we know it.
And people, particularly
young Italian artists
who felt that he was
their salvation, in a way,
from the stranglehold
that the School of Paris
had held on modern art
for a long time.
[funky music playing]
[Hiroko]
[Phillip] Rauschenberg
had something to do
while he was in Venice,
which was to help
Merce Cunningham and John Cage
do a performance.
I think he was probably hardly
aware of what was going on
all around him.
He was not a protagonist,
he was not a player.
[mellow music playing]
[Alice] I had
no money for Merce,
and the State Department
wouldn't give me any.
So we sold two seats.
People were sitting on laps
at La Fenice Theater.
[Calvin] La Fenice Theater is
one of the jewels of Europe.
Every detail is beautiful.
The opening of the Cunningham
troupe's performance
became a sort of
must-see event.
[Hiroko]
Oh, it was crazy
because we had oversold tickets.
[Calvin] There was a huge crowd
of people who tried to crash
it,
who didn't have tickets
but said
that a very important person
had promised
to get them a ticket.
They were in the way
of the people
who did have tickets.
As a result, the performance
was delayed by an hour.
[indistinct chatter]
[exclamations]
-[booing]
-[whistling]
[soft piano music playing]
Some people had come
for the purpose of booing...
[booing]
...and others had come
prepared to be at w*r
with the booers and to cheer.
[cheering]
It was enormously exciting
in this small jewel
of a theater.
-[cheering]
-[applause]
As the performance went on,
there were outbursts
of applause all through it,
and contradictory
boos and hisses.
[cheering]
And the booing, of course,
encouraged the enthusiasts
to cheer even louder.
[cheering]
The dancers were wonderful.
They were immune
to all of this.
[stomping sound]
[Hiroko]
[Alice] Bob was
having a good time.
He was rolling around
everywhere.
He really and truly had no idea
that he might win.
That night,
Alan and I found out
that it would be Bob
who would win the prize.
But he was ill*gal.
Most of Bob's work
was in the consulate,
not in the Giardini grounds.
So, at the last minute,
"No, you cannot win a prize."
This precipitated
a great crisis.
[dramatic music playing]
[Achim] More work has to be
brought in to the Giardini
for him to actually qualify
for the prize.
[Alice] So I got
the Navy launch...
[funky music playing]
...but it wasn't big enough.
And then Alan said,
"We need a big barge."
And then I said, "Okay,
somebody better go in the barge
with the work to be sure
it got up there."
And Alan said,
"You're getting in the barge.
You can swim and I can't."
[dramatic music playing]
The Venice Biennale Pavilion
is U-shaped,
so there is a part
which is sort of an open space
between the two branches
of the U.
[Alice] I had a little
architect building
a little corrugated roof.
[Leo] He quickly built
a plastic roof over that.
[Calvin] At the last
possible minute,
a number of Rauschenberg
paintings were moved
from the former
American Embassy
to the US Pavilion
on the Biennale grounds.
This was astute,
it was clever, it was nimble,
but it was also viewed
as skullduggery.
[Calvin] There was a photograph
of this happening the next day
that went viral, as we say now.
And the caption
was something like:
"Stealth move on the part
of the Americans.
They're sneaking paintings."
[Hiroko]
[intense music playing]
[Alice] We didn't cheat.
We had a goal,
as all countries did.
[uplifting music playing]
It all worked.
[indistinct chatter]
[applause]
[camera shutter clicking]
[Calvin] There was
a great impromptu celebration.
When the prizes
were decided by the jury,
I went into the piazza
with Rauschenberg.
And Italian artists came up
to him and threw
their arms around him.
[cheering]
[Calvin] They picked him up
and paraded him
around San Marco
on their shoulders...
and it was a real circus.
[Alan] Rauschenberg
wants to shock us
out of our blindness.
This is the important thing
about his work,
and I think it is why
it has been understood
beyond our wildest imagination.
[Leo] Of course,
I did feel very triumphant
about the crowning
of all my efforts.
[majestic music playing]
[Hiroko]
[soft music playing]
[woman] Bob was like mother;
she used to say this
all the time, that,
"If you don't like
what's going on,
you work like the dickens
to fix it.
And if you can't fix it,
you just play like you like it."
You just play like you like it.
The Biennale thing was...
I don't know, it was
much too sort of grotesque
and marvelous to be a fantasy.
But it all seemed quite unreal.
It's easier to remember
what my reaction was afterwards,
like months and months
afterwards
than what those few days
were like.
[bell chiming]
[pensive music playing]
[Calvin] The next day,
Leo Castelli invited
a lot of people for lunch
at a restaurant
on the island of Burano.
And we all went over in boats.
[indistinct chatter]
It was a very festive affair.
It lasted for three hours.
A lot of the Italian artists
were invited.
Michelangelo Pistoletto
was there.
-[indistinct chatter]
-[camera clicking]
[Alice] And Alan came and said
to Rauschenberg and myself,
"You two behave yourselves."
The ambassador is there.
And, you know,
Bob didn't care.
[soft music playing]
[bell pealing]
Afterwards,
walking back to the boat
I happened to be walking
alongside Bob,
and I asked him how it felt
to get this thing.
And Bob said, "You know what?
Until that thing in San Marco,
I didn't realize
that this really was something
and that it meant something.
He said, "It kind of scared me."
While he was still in Venice,
he cabled an assistant
in New York
and told him to collect
all of the old silkscreens
in the studio
and burn them.
I got rid of
all my silkscreens.
The temptation to just use
the screens I already had
would have been...
it would have been too great.
[Calvin] He didn't want
to repeat himself.
He knew that would be
the death of him.
He told me,
"I'm a little afraid
of losing touch with myself.
And I can't afford to do that
because I'm
the only thing I have."
There was a humbleness to it,
and a genuine uncertainty
about what was next.
I was very moved.
I still am.
This Biennale changed the way
American art was perceived.
It also changed Rauschenberg.
He was now
an international figure.
Things weren't
going to be the same.
[dramatic music playing]
[Lyndon B. Johnson]
My fellow Americans,
I am about to sign into law
the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
[man] The FBI announced
the finding of three bodies
near Philadelphia, Mississippi,
where three
civil rights workers
disappeared a month ago.
[thrum of helicopter blades]
[LBJ] The determination
of all Americans
to carry out
our full commitment
to the people of South Vietnam
will be redoubled
by this outrage.
[shouting]
[man 2] With a cloud
of tear gas,
Selma ceased to be
an obscure Southern city
and became a symbol.
[Sarah] Shortly after
coming back from winning
the grand prize
and his world tour
with Merce Cunningham,
Life magazine
commissioned Rauschenberg
for a special issue
to commemorate
the 700th birthday of Dante.
And Rauschenberg dove
into charged,
very obviously
political imagery:
corpses stacked in a mass grave,
race riots, the atom b*mb...
[expl*si*n]
...police dogs barking fiercely
at protesters.
[barking]
Very politically charged.
A real turn.
[shouting]
[Louis] Before 1965,
the United States
was thought of as a relatively
benevolent superpower,
because we spread our wealth
all over the world.
-[b*mb whizzing]
-[explosions]
Almost on a dime,
the whole scene is
completely changed.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"
on electric guitar playing]
[man] Beatnik hippies!
Communist agitators!
handful of dissident,
radical, rebel,
f*cked-up students everywhere!
[Louis] Consciousness is raised
about political questions
that really hadn't been
on the front burner
before that.
[g*nsh*t]
[Achim] At the end
of the decade,
Rauschenberg made Signs
and summarized
Kennedy's assassination,
the race riots,
the Vietnam w*r,
the assassination
of Martin Luther King,
this truly dystopian moment,
there is such a strong sense
that this undiluted,
positive belief
of a generation
into a new future
is over for good.
[somber music playing]
[JFK] If sometimes
our great artists
have been most critical
of our society,
it is because
their concern for justice,
makes him aware
that our nation
falls short
of its highest potential.
Some of us take pride
in the fact that we can be
both an aesthetic artist
but also be
very socially conscious.
And to me, Rauschenberg
is the epitome of that.
I think of him as
a very profound American artist,
the way he engaged
with the society.
[Mark] What influenced me
the most were the combines.
He was trying to combine
more than materials.
He's trying to connect
art history
and kind of a social history.
And Rauschenberg worked
his whole life.
Sometimes the works were great,
sometimes they were in between,
but the thing about Rauschenberg
was he continued
to experiment,
to continue to push forward.
Rauschenberg was a man
that kept moving.
[engine roaring]
[Sarah] In the 1980s,
Rauschenberg undertook
a hugely ambitious project
that took him
all over the world.
[Achim] He was
going into countries
like China, Tibet, Russia,
that had no cultural exchange
with the United States.
[soft piano music playing]
[Robert] It's called ROCI.
Named after my turtle.
[clicking]
[Calvin] He had
a naive idealism.
He felt that if he could
connect with local artists
and produce art
using local materials
and have it show
in all these countries,
it could change
the way people thought,
and the way people lived.
[Robert] The whole idea is that
through information
about each other,
we might be able to stop
some of the stupidity
that are controlling us.
It's a peace mission.
[indistinct chatter]
[Calvin] Ileana Sonnabend
and Leo Castelli
thought he was committing
professional suicide.
Nobody was willing
to fund ROCI.
Nobody.
Absolutely nobody.
[Calvin] And so he funded it
entirely himself.
[Robert] But I kind of liked
the purity,
because if we'd had
the government doing it,
it would have been
under their control
and censorship and advice.
All five of those words
are the same thing.
[woman] They're
about to practice.
[Hiroko]
[Robert] I'm sort of
working against
most of the politicians
in the sense
that they can only control
if there's a question
of power.
And I think there would be
no need for power
if there was communication.
[pensive music playing]
[Michael] Soft power,
that use of culture
can be an extraordinarily
powerful tool
for understanding
and bringing people together,
because it is
a common language.
But back in 1964,
there was real anger
that this kind of art had won.
[dramatic music playing]
European critics criticized it
for being vulgar,
materialistic, soulless art
that represents nothing
but the consumer mentality
of the United States.
Instead of creating
a positive image
of the United States,
the show was whipping up
anti-American sentiment.
[Ed] In the end,
it was a Pyrrhic victory.
The price of doing all of this
was the demise
of the fine art section
from USIA,
because USIA felt
it was too controversial.
The next year,
the United States government
essentially washed its hands
of the art program.
[cameras whirring]
Uh...
[soft music playing]
An extraordinary amount
of hostility
was created by my good fortune.
I don't know, I was feeling
quite patriotic about it.
[Alice] You know,
it's so funny, since I knew
really what the truth was,
I didn't pay
any attention to it.
We were popular.
No matter what anybody says,
we were popular.
[Philip] They backed a winner.
They backed one of the major
artists
of the second half
of the 20th century
who still today is considered
a groundbreaker, a pioneer.
So they got it right.
How they did it
is another matter.
[as Alan] I can't tell you
what hell I went through
with the artists,
and one thing and another.
It's a fantastic story,
and the way
it was told in the press,
is, of course,
absolutely untrue.
We might have won it anyway,
but we really engineered it.
[uplifting music playing]
[Robert] Twenty-six years ago,
when I was here
and got the grand prize
and all that,
the Biennale was described
as the Olympics.
And so that everyone,
all the nations,
you know, would be separated
and compete against each other.
Now I think
that you can't have
all the blue-eyed people
in one pavilion
and all the brown-eyed people
in another pavilion
and have anything
that makes
any international sense.
That idea of nationalism
has to be dissolved.
[Simone] Thanks
so much for coming.
[woman] To represent
one's country
is a heavy mantle to take on.
And I wanted to ask you:
"What does it mean to you
to represent
the United States in 2022?"
We need to get rid of
the idea of nationalism
if we're gonna go forward.
However, I do think,
as a woman who was
the child of immigrants,
I do have
an American experience,
and I'm very happy to be able
to share my ideas globally.
[applause]
[man] You really believe
art can change society?
Of course, I know it can.
It has for thousands of years.
I can't think that one more day
is too much.
["Cultural Exchange" playing]
[Louis Armstrong]
Yeah, I remember
When Diz was in Greece
Back in '57
He did such a good job
We started sending jazz
All over the world
The State Department
Has discovered jazz
It reaches folks
Like nothin' ever has
Like when they feel
That jazzy rhythm
They know
We're really with 'em
That's what we call
Cultural exchange
No commodity
Is quite so strange
As this thing
Called cultural exchange
Say that our prestige
Needs a tonic
Export the Philharmonic
That's what we call
Cultural exchange
That's what we call
Cultural exchange
We put Oklahoma in Japan
South Pacific
We gave to Iran
And when our neighbors
Call us vermin
We sent out Woody Herman
That's what we call
Cultural exchange
Gershwin gave
The Muscovites a thrill
[man] With Porgy and Bess
[Louis Armstrong] Bernstein
Was the darlin' of Brazil
[man] And isn't he here?
[Louis Armstrong] And just
To stop internal mayhem
We dispatch Martha Graham
That's what we call
Cultural exchange
That's what we call
Cultural exchange
Yes, and if the world
Goes wacky
We'll get John
To send out Jackie
[man] You mean
Jackie Robinson?
[Louis Armstrong] No, man,
I mean the First Lady!
That's what we call
Cultural exchange
Oh, that's what we call
Cultural exchange
Whoa, yes!
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