American pavilion


The American pavilion is a national pavilion of the Venice Biennale. It houses the United States' official representation during the Biennale.

Background

The Venice Biennale is an international art biennial exhibition held in Venice, Italy. Often described as "the Olympics of the art world", the Biennale is a prestigious event for contemporary artists known for propelling career visibility. The festival has become a constellation of shows: a central exhibition curated by that year's artistic director, national pavilions hosted by individual nations, and independent exhibitions throughout Venice. The Biennale parent organization also hosts regular festivals in other arts: architecture, dance, film, music, and theater.
Outside of the central, international exhibition, individual nations produce their own shows, known as pavilions, as their national representation. Nations that own their pavilion buildings, such as the 30 housed on the Giardini, are responsible for their own upkeep and construction costs as well. Nations without dedicated buildings create pavilions in venues throughout the city.

Organization and building

The American pavilion was the ninth to be built on the Giardini, but unlike other pavilions, which are built by governments, the American pavilion was privately owned. The three-room Palladian building was constructed in 1930 for the New York Grand Central Art Galleries. Ownership transferred to the Museum of Modern Art in 1954 and to the Guggenheim Foundation in 1986.
For the United States' national representation, a committee of experts select from proposals written by institutions. The Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions is assembled by the National Endowment of the Arts and Department of State. The months-long process involves an application nearly 100 pages in length and a final embargo before announcement.

History

The United States Pavilion at the Venice Biennale was constructed in 1930 by the Grand Central Art Galleries, a nonprofit artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmund Greacen, and others. As stated in the Galleries' 1934 catalog, the organization's goal was to "give a broader field to American art; to exhibit in a larger way to a more numerous audience, not in New York alone but throughout the country, thus displaying to the world the inherent value which our art undoubtedly possesses."
In 1930 Walter Leighton Clark and the Grand Central Art Galleries spearheaded the creation of the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The pavilion's architects were William Adams Delano, who also designed the Grand Central Art Galleries, and Chester Holmes Aldrich. The purchase of the land, design, and construction was paid for by the galleries and personally supervised by Clark. As he wrote in the 1934 catalog:
"Pursuing our purpose of putting American art prominently before the world, the directors a few years ago appropriated the sum of $25,000 for the erection of an exhibition building in Venice on the grounds of the International Biennial. Messrs. Delano and Aldrich generously donated the plans for this building which is constructed of Istrian marble and pink brick and more than holds its own with the twenty-five other buildings in the Park owned by the various European governments."

The pavilion, owned and operated by the galleries, opened on May 4, 1930. Approximately 90 paintings and 12 sculptures were selected by Clark for the opening exhibition. Artists featured included Max Boehm, Hector Caser, Lillian Westcott Hale, Edward Hopper, Abraham Poole, Julius Rolshoven, Joseph Pollet, Eugene Savage, Elmer Shofeld, Ofelia Keelan, and African-American artist Henry Tanner. U.S. Ambassador John W. Garrett opened the show together with the Duke of Bergamo.
The Grand Central Art Galleries operated the U.S. Pavilion until 1954, when it was sold to the Museum of Modern Art. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s shows were organized by MOMA, Art Institute of Chicago, and Baltimore Museum of Art. The Modern withdrew from the Biennale in 1964, and the United States Information Agency ran the Pavilion until it was sold to the Guggenheim Foundation courtesy of funds provided by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
Financial support by Philip Morris and private money raised by the Committee for the 1986 American Pavilion at the 1986 Venice Biennale made the exhibition at the United States pavilion possible. Since 1986 the Peggy Guggenheim Collection has worked with the United States Information Agency, the US Department of State and the Fund for Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions in the organization of the visual arts exhibitions at the US Pavilion, while the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation has organized the comparable shows at the Architecture Biennales. Every two years museum curators from across the U.S. detail their visions for the American pavilion in proposals that are reviewed by the NEA Federal Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions, a group comprising curators, museum directors and artists who then submit their recommendations to the public-private Fund for United States Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions. Traditionally the endowment's selection committee has chosen a proposal submitted by a museum or curator, but in 2004 it simply chose an artist who in turn has nominated a curator, later approved by the State Department.

Exhibitions

Rauschenberg's selection for the 1964 Golden Lion marked the United States' ascendancy over European artistic dominance, and the entrance of pop art into canon.

Representation by year

Art

#YearArtistCuratorShow notesRef
58th2019Liberty/Libertà
57th2017, Katy Siegel
56th2015, Ute Meta Bauer
55th2013, Carey Lovelace
54th2011Allora & Calzadilla
53rd2009, Michael R. TaylorTopological Gardens; won Golden Lion for best national pavilion
52nd2007
51st2005, Donna De Salvo
50th2003
49th2001, James Rondeau
48th1999, Helaine Posner
47th1997
46th1995
45th1993
44th1990
43rd1988
42nd1986
41st1984, Charles Garabedian, Melissa Miller, and others, Lynn Gumpert, Ned Rifkin
40th1982Jess, Robert Smithson, Richard Pousette-Dart, Robert Hobbs
39th1980, Christo, Laurie Anderson, and others
38th1978, Richard Diebenkorn, Peter Bunnell, Linda Cathcart
37th1976, Charles Garabedian, Robert Irwin, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Robert Motherwell, Ed Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Joel Shapiro, Richard Tuttle, Andy Warhol, H.C. Westermann, Hugh M. Davies, Sam Hunter, Rosalind Krauss, Marcia Tucker
36th1972, Ronald Davis, Richard Estes, Sam Gilliam, Jim Nutt, Keith SonnierArbus, posthumously, became the first photographer to be shown at the Biennale.
35th1970Jasper Johns, Josef Albers, Alexander Liberman, Sam Francis, Ed Ruscha, Henry T. HopkinsOver half of the 47 invited artists boycotted the exhibition in protest of the Vietnam War. The boycott hurt the show's credibility. The Smithsonian retreated from international art shows following this threatened boycott.
34th1968, Edwin Dickinson, Richard Diebenkorn, Red Grooms, James McGarrell, Reuben Nakian, Fairfield Porter, Byron Burford—
33rd1966, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Jules Olitski—
32nd1964, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella—Rauschenberg won the top award for his silkscreen paintings. The award was symbolic of art world power transfer from France to the United States.
31st1962, Louise Nevelson
30th1960, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Theodore Roszak—
29th1958?—
28th195635 artists, including Lyonel Feininger, John Marin, Charles Sheeler, Edward Hopper, George Tooker, Jacob Lawrence, Joseph Stella, Georgia O'Keefe, Mark Tobey, Hedda Sterne, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Willem de KooningAmerican Artists Paint the City
27th1954, Ben Shahn—
26th1952, Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi—
25th1950, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Hyman Bloom, Lee Gatch, Rico Lebrun, Alfred FrankfurterHalf of the show was dedicated to Marin, a modernist. The curators split the remaining half.
24th194879 artists including George Bellows, Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, William Baziotes, Arshile Gorky, Jacob Lawrence, Mark Rothko, Theodoros Stamos, Mark Tobey?