1976: the birth of the thematic Biennale and the issue of the market - International Conference The Venice Biennale and the Art Market, the Venice Biennale as an Art Market: Anatomy of a Complex Relationship - IESA Royal Holloway University - London 3-5 February 2016 (original) (raw)

1976: the birth of the thematic Biennale and the issue of the market - International Conference The Venice Biennale and the Art Market, the Venice Biennale as an Art Market: Anatomy of a Complex Relationship - IESA Royal Holloway University - London 3-5 February 2016

Born to "stimulate the new contemporary art market", following the 1968 protest the Biennale was forced to close its Sales Office and suppress its prizes. The Hiennale had been violently contested for failing to fulfill it's responsibility as a public institution: instead of promoting and independent culture, it was dependent on politics and compromised by organisation criteria that were regarded as incoherent. This system had led to exhibitions that focused more on second-rate culture and market than on research and critical/rigorous analysis. In the wake of the protest, in 1973 the president of the Itakian Republic signed a bill that reformed the Biennale and changed the nature of the public cultural institution. The first four years after the reform, 1974-1978, are an interesting case study that reveals the complex relationships between the Biennale and the art market. In this paper I will analyse 1976 as the first and last really thematic edition of the Biennale and I will argue the reasons that brought in 1980 to the appointment of conservative Giusepoe Galasso as president of the institution. Galasso was a "normalised" who put an end to an age of radical experimentation and fought back historical exhibitions in which painting was the absolute protagonist, along with the market.