Journal of Modern Italian Studies

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To sell or not to sell? Attempts at reopening the

Venice Biennale’s sales office after 1973

Clarissa Ricci

To cite this article: Clarissa Ricci (2021) To sell or not to sell? Attempts at reopening the
Venice Biennale’s sales office after 1973, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 26:4, 459-481, DOI:
10.1080/1354571X.2021.1943206

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1354571X.2021.1943206

Published online: 02 Aug 2021.

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JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES
2021, VOL. 26, NO. 4, 459–481
https://doi.org/10.1080/1354571X.2021.1943206

To sell or not to sell? Attempts at reopening the

Venice Biennale’s sales office after 1973
Clarissa Ricci
Università di Bologna, Italy

ABSTRACT
Through a consideration of specific cases where attempts were made to reopen the
Venice Biennale sales office, this article investigates how the institution negotiated
its legitimation role through sales and awards. Selling services were available at the
Biennale since its inception in 1895 until 1973. Its closure led scholars to believe that
sales were a closed book. However, minutes and documents of the board showed
how restarting sales was a recurrent topic. Furthermore, the article brings the
account into the 1980s and 1990s, when the contrast between the symbolic and
economic value of art was radicalized. Discussions over the need to reopen the
sales office demonstrate how the agency, or counter-agency, of the market played
an important and invisible role in shaping the contemporary Biennale’s exhibition
format. Untangling specific complexities of the Venice Biennale’s history, the article
ultimately shows how the changed role of the institution would not allow the sales
office to reopen.
RIASSUNTO
A partire dal ritrovamento di documenti che attestano diversi tentativi di riaper­
tura dell’ufficio vendite della Biennale di Venezia, il testo indaga il modo in cui
l’istituzione veneziana abbia negoziato il suo ruolo di legittimazione culturale
attraverso vendite e premi. La chiusura del servizio vendita, attivo sin dal 1895 e
fino al 1973, ha indotto a credere che le vendite fossero un capitolo chiuso.
Tuttavia, tanto i verbali quanto i documenti del consiglio direttivo mostrano
come la possibilità di riavviare le vendite fosse un argomento ricorrente. In
particolare il saggio si concentra su due episodi negli anni Ottanta e Novanta
mettendo il luce il contrasto tra il valore simbolico ed economico dell’arte.
Districandosi tra le complessità della storia della Biennale, il testo mostra inoltre
come il mercato abbia svolto un ruolo di agente, e contro-agente, nel plasmare il
format espositivo della Biennale contemporanea e che, altresì, il mutato ruolo
dell’istituzione non consentirebbe la riapertura dell’ufficio vendite.

KEYWORDS Venice Biennale; sales; art market; contemporary art; sales office; collecting; art fair

PAROLE CHIAVE Biennale di Venezia; vendite; mercato dell'arte; arte contemporanea; ufficio vendite;
collezionismo; fiera d'arte

Introduction
The fact that the Venice Biennale is a non-commercial exhibition seems an
obvious point, yet the Biennale’s president, Paolo Baratta,1 nevertheless felt

© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

460 C. RICCI

the urge to bring attention to it in 2019 press conferences.2 Such emphasis

certainly points to the ambiguous relationship between large-scale exhibi­
tions and the art market. However, this unsolicited excuse manifests the
traces of a continuous debate within the Biennale around opportunities for
reopening its sales office. Recent archival findings at the Venice Biennale’s
Historical Archive (A.S.A.C.)3 have shown that discussions around the possi­
bility of selling exhibited artworks continued within the Institution’s board for
over twenty years after the closure of the sales office.
The close relationship and exchange between the Biennale and the market
is a fact openly discussed by scholars such as Olav Velthuis, who defined the
influence of the Biennale on sales as the ‘Venice effect’ (2011), or Beat Wyss,
who recalled the mercantile tradition of the city by referring to the exchange
platform created by the Venetian pavilion national system as ‘the Venice
bazaar’ (Wyss and Scheller 2011). Nevertheless, when episodes that evidence
this ambiguous relationship occur, as when exhibited artworks sold for high
prices before the Biennale’s opening, the media’s reaction oscillates between
moralistic condemnation and a more cynical and cognisant approach.
Only a couple of years before Baratta’s statement the invitation card of the
opening dinner of Philip Guston exhibition in 2017, organized by the interna­
tional gallery Hauser & Wirth, showed the thirteen artists who were exhibiting
there on a map of Venice (Ferraioli 2017; Yablonsky 2017). In itself a magistral
work of communication and display of power, the invitation was a contem­
poraneous probation of Lawrence Alloway’s description of the Venice Biennale
as a place to meet the art world’s jet setters and strike deals (1968, 23–24).
However, as Vettese has contended, the Biennale’s relationship with gal­
leries is more vital than parasitic (2014, 52–53). Galleries often allow large-
scale installations to be built or shoulder consistent transportation costs. If
anything, the relationships between these art agents operating in value-
making are necessary ones. In the case of Hauser & Wirth renting out a
whole Palazzo for the opening days, who benefitted the most? Was it the
Biennale, hosting in its ‘Venice bazaar’ a powerful gallery that supported the
exhibition costs of their artists and threw a glamorous party, or did Hauser &
Wirth benefit from the ‘Venice effect’, which enhances artists’ reputations and
sales prices?
The active participation of galleries at the Biennale can be understood
through Georg Franck’s theory of the economy of attention (1999). In this
model, curators and gallery owners are considered as investors ‘who lend
[their] capital (in the form of the exhibition space and its associated cultural
prestige) to the artist’ (Bull 2011, 181). Even if this theory is shared, typically at
a basic level of recognizing that exhibitions can determine artists’ reputa­
tions, often journalists have claimed that the reopening of the Biennale’s sales
office would make the relationships between agents – gallery owners, exhibi­
tion organizers, curators and artists – more forthright and honest.
 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 461

However, it was not only to defend a self-consciously uncompromising

position with regard to the market that Baratta insisted on the topic, but also
to respond to an internal debate in the Biennale. Attempts made to resume
sales at the Venice Biennale in 1984 and 1993 suggest that the closure of the
sales office was, for over twenty years, an un-resolved critical matter. The aim
of this article is to explore the relationship between the Biennale and the
market through the reconstruction of the history around the dilemma of
selling exhibited artworks at the Biennale from the end of the 1960s and
into the 1990s, examining the specific functions connected to sales. To do so,
the article presents an introductory historical section which in the first para­
graph gives the reader a more precise understanding of the functioning of
the sales office between 1895 and 1973. In the second section it addresses
more closely the reasons and events that brought an end to sales at the
Biennale. The third paragraph unfolds the complexities that characterized the
attempts at reopening the sales office through two specific examples. The
fourth and last paragraph addresses the role of the exhibition in the larger
market context.

1. Understanding the Venice Biennale sales office

Sales have been a business at the Venice Biennale since its establishment in
1895 (Ricci 2017), where trade in art was intended to support the economy of
the exhibition (Figure 1).4 The founding committee aimed to maintain the
custom of selling exhibited artworks, considering the high profits gained in
1887,5 when a similar national art exhibition was held in Venice (Lamberti
[1982] 2020, 26–27).

Figure 1. Venice Biennale Sales Chart 1895–1972, by Clarissa Ricci.

462 C. RICCI

Therefore, every exhibited work at the Venice Biennale was for sale unless
otherwise stated. The final price was mainly decided by the artist, who was
paid after tax and 10–15 per cent had been retained by the Biennale.6 Before
the Second World War, sales were entrusted directly the general secretary
and supported by the administration office; this role was rarely outsourced
(Ricci 2017, 3–6). The main reason for this was that, through sales, the general
secretary could maintain control of the network that he needed to promote
the event. To strengthen the Biennale’s power of legitimation, the general
secretary, Antonio Fradeletto, ensured that the Biennale sold mostly to
museums. He repeatedly wrote to museum directors, dealers and important
personalities, inviting them to support the Venice Biennale through sales. The
commitment of the Italian Government was practically expressed through a
quota for acquisitions for the Italian royal family’s purchases.7 Before the
Second World War, most of the Biennale’s sales were museum acquisitions
(Gian Ferrari 1995, 70). To encourage this practice, which would also improve
the Venetian institution’s reputation among artists and collectors, a major
discount was applied to the final price. This unspoken rule persisted over time
and was subscribed to by the artists concerned (Ricci 2017, 4).
After the Second World War, the situation reversed. Following the success­
ful sales made during the 1942 exhibition, which was outsourced to Ettore
Gian Ferrari, the Biennale’s management was persuaded that in order to raise
profits it was best to continue to subcontract sales to a professional dealer.
That year, Gian Ferrari increased the percentage of sold artworks from the
average figure of 14 per cent over the previous ten years to over 25 per cent
in 1942. The dealer’s ability to manage sales and his flexibility in dealing with
the Biennale’s bureaucracy were his winning traits. As a result, for over twenty
years and with few exceptions,8 the Milanese gallerist managed the
Biennale’s sales office.
After 1948, the organization of the sales office continued in the same way.
There were no significant alterations in terms of regulation, percentage rate
and price policy. Nevertheless, two relevant agents were changing: the own­
ers and buyers of artwork.
If, before 1948, artists were the principal owners of the exhibited artworks,
gallerists, museums and private collectors increasingly emerged as owners
after the post-war period. This almost imperceptible aspect becomes evident
only after perusing the ledgers and artworks’ notification forms.
The advent of collectors and museums as owners can be easily explained.
Between 1948 and 1958, the Biennale adopted an exhibition policy that
largely focused on exhibiting artists who had been ostracized during the
Fascist regime (Boudillon Puma 1995, 29–32). After the post-war decade, this
practice diminished but the Biennale maintained the tradition of organizing
historical exhibitions. Necessarily, artworks in this exhibition were predomi­
nantly lent by institutions or collectors. Therefore, considering the overall
 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 463

group of owners, artists were rarely still the owners of their work in the case of
retrospective exhibitions.
This change, which was substantial, meant that there were fewer artworks
for sale.
In 1952, Gian Ferrari wrote to Romolo Bazzoni, head of the Biennale’s
administration, to express his regret that more of 65 per cent of the art­
works were not for sale.9 The lament in this letter was also fuelled by the
discouragingly small percentage compensation of 0.5 per cent that Gian
Ferrari had to accept, fearing that he would be unable to maintain his
position as director of the sales office,10 a position to which many aspired.11
The diminishing number of artworks for sale became a situation that
seemed to worsen each year to the point that in 1957 the president of
the Biennale stated that no more than 25 per cent of the works were for
sale.12
However, during the 1960s, a slight change in the Biennale’s exhibition
policy occurred (Boudillon Puma 1995, 131–132). After a decade of retro­
spective exhibitions intended to improve Italy’s international reputation after
fascism, the Biennale’s board increasingly wanted to promote more contem­
poraneous and emerging artistic movements and devote more space to the
institution’s international visibility, promoting the construction of new
national pavilions. It was in such an attempt to rejuvenate the Biennale’s
exhibition policy that the 1964 prize was given to Robert Rauschenberg.
Nevertheless, the moving of Ugo Mulas’ photographs of Rauschenberg’s
paintings to the Giardini before the award proclamation, seemed to be
evidence of a marketing strategy aimed at cultivating international intrigue
(Genauer 1964, 21; Constable 1964, 65–68). All of the efforts to devote space
to more contemporary art production resulted in polemics around the sup­
posed interference of the Italian-American gallerist, Leo Castelli. In fact, as
Bongard has noted, Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend were involved on a
different level (1968, 288–289); they were the direct interlocutors of the U.S.
Pavilion and agents for the promotion of Rauschenberg worldwide (Ikegami
2010, 57–100), highlighting how galleries were among the principal points of
contact for museum institutions.
Gian Ferrari suffered continuous interference during the sales process on
many levels. As an example, in that same year of 1964, he came into conflict
with Palma Bucarelli, director of the Museum of Modern Art in Rome, on
account of the latter’s meddling in negotiations with the artists.13 However,
the Castelli-Rauschenberg scandal shed light on a new scenario in the art
world that had little to do with artistic language. Galleries were increasingly
becoming the main promoters of artists, taking on a central role in the art
market. As a matter of fact, concurrently, in the Biennale’s notification forms,
galleries were increasingly being registered as ‘owners’. This situation, which
became significantly prevalent towards the end of the 1960s, subtly changed
464 C. RICCI

the role of Gian Ferrari, who increasingly lost contact with the artists
themselves.
To clearly illustrate the changing scenario, it is useful to compare two
notification forms from the 1968 Venice Biennale exhibition in which the
owners were gallerists. The first is Pino Pascali’s notification form (Figure 2).14
In the document the artwork is recorded as being owned mostly by Galleria
L’Attico. In this case, the gallery made a contract with the artist, who handed
over all of his works to the gallery. Its director Fabio Sargentini was also the
direct interlocutor between the exhibition’s curators and Pascali, negotiating
display changes on behalf of the artist.15 In this specific case, the artwork was
not for sale. Presumably, the works were sold by the gallerist after the event.
Parallel to this scenario was the contrasting example of the notification form
of Achille Perilli (Figure 3). In this case the owner is also a gallery, more
specifically the Gallery Marlborough. However, as was customary with this
gallery, which could be described as a commercial gallery, it decided instead
to use Gian Ferrari’s sales services. For this reason, in the second example, the
notification form indicates the prices of the artworks exhibiting at the
Giardini.16
Moreover, buyers were also changing. If, before the Second World War,
the majority of sales were made by museums or public institutions, in the
1960s, these decreased significantly, a fact that worried the Biennale’s
management. Rodolfo Pallucchini, director of the Biennale’s visual arts
section between 1948 and 1956, wrote directly to museum directors
prior to the exhibition opening, asking to know in advance the quota
that each museum allocated for purchases at the Biennale. Pallucchini,
who was not directly in charge of sales, but was definitively responsible for
the exhibition’s budget, surely had economic concerns. The slow dissev­
erance of public institutions from the Biennale meant that it was no longer
possible to be sure about the budget. During times of intermittent funding
from the state, as was the case in the 1950s and 1960s, knowing the
acquisition quota that institutions intended to spend at the Biennale in
advance constituted a terrific financial backdrop. Moreover, as Palluchini’s
request demonstrates by virtue of his attempt to bridge its gap, a growing
distance from museums was a symptom of a changing scenario in the art
world.

2. End of the ‘biennale of capitalists’

When the sales office was closed in 1973, the Biennale was no longer
practically able to fulfil the requests of sellers and buyers. Despite the evi­
dence to support this, scholars have predominantly asserted that it was the
student protest against commodification that prompted the closure of the
Venice Biennale’s sales office.17
 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 465

Figure 2. Pino Pascali, Notification Form, 1968, © Archivio Storico della Biennale di
Venezia – ASAC, Fodo storico, Arti visive b. 161, Pascali Pino.
466 C. RICCI

Figure 3. Achille Perilli, Notification Form, 1968, © Archivio Storico della Biennale di
Venezia – ASAC, Fondo storico.
 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 467

On the contrary, attacks against the Biennale’s commodification – at least

initially – did not undermine the belief that selling at the Biennale would
benefit artists (Ricci 2020a, 59–60). The reasons why the protesters clashed
with the police in Venice in 1968 are more complex than the established
narrative suggests.
Following the French revolts in May 1968, dissent spread across Europe
and, before materializing at the Biennale, erupted at the opening of the
Milan Triennale (Nicolin 2012). In Venice, the students of the Academia
had occupied the school building earlier in May, but as the opening of the
Biennale approached delays and organizational problems connected to
the main exhibition arose and public attention shifted towards the
Biennale. The protest was joined by artists, commissioners of the pavi­
lions, and most importantly, the Biennale’s staff and local politicians.
Artists and pavilion commissioners made evident their protest, especially
during the opening, covering artworks and closing the entrances to the
exhibitions (Di Stefano 2010, 130–134). Famously, Gastone Novelli turned
his canvases around and wrote ‘la Biennale è fascista’ (the Biennale is
Fascist) on their backs, pointing to the real problem: the need to rewrite
the Biennale’s charter, which had remained unchanged since the institu­
tion’s reorganization during the Fascist regime in 1938.18 Thus, the need
for the large-scale reorganization of the Biennale’s exhibition politics,
structure and economic organization was at stake in the protest.
Criticisms of the commodification of culture were focused more on
denouncing the Biennale’s festival set-up, which favoured mundane party-
like events but did not have a cultural impact on Venice. The protesters, who
had in mind Debord’s attacks on the spectacle and the Marcusian criticism of
commodification, primarily condemned awards, which in their view fuelled
the spectacle offered by art. The evidence of the objectives underlying the
protest is easily traceable in the facts that followed the opening’s events.
Shortly after the opening days when the protest apexed, most of the artists
uncovered their work and pavilions opened their doors to the public.
Nevertheless, fearing new attacks, prizes were awarded only on the exhibi­
tion’s closing dates. Sales, however, were never interrupted. Gian Ferrari’s
report, supported by receipts and ledgers in the archive of the Biennale,
shows that sales were regularly arranged during the opening, albeit under
difficult conditions.19 Gian Ferrari’s withdrawal at the end of the 1968 exhibi­
tion must have induced many scholars to think that the sales office had
ended its activity. However, under the directorship of another Milanese
gallery, Zita Vismara, the Biennale continued to sell artworks for two more
exhibitions, achieving high sales in 1972 (Ricci 2017, 17).
The first document that the Biennale Staff Assembly – a self-proclaimed
autonomous body established to reform the institution following the protest20
– produced in 1969 stated that awards were abolished but sales were maintained
468 C. RICCI

since ‘the sales office protected artists from the galleries’.21 The sales office was
reconciled as a ‘zona franca’ (free trade zone)22 in the art world through which it
was possible to contact an artist without the mediation of galleries. This different
way of conceiving sales justifies the office’s change of name to ‘servizi vendita’
(sales services)23 and the disappearance of the location of the office from the
exhibition map. It was probably this slight ‘change of clothes’ which tricked
scholars into supposing that sales ceased after the protest of 1968.
Regardless of this renovation, when the new Biennale’s charter was finally
approved by the Italian government in 1973, the sales office was discontin­
ued. Its closure was not purely a response to the revolutionary cultural
movements that aimed to distance business, trading and wealth as much a
possible from art and culture. On the contrary, it was exactly the same strain
of leftist thought that maintained sales in order to prevent artists from over­
powering galleries. However, the drive of Marxist ideologies, which spread
first around Europe and the Westernized world thereafter, shouldered an
important change in the circulation of art that had already taken place in
the 1960s (Ricci 2020a). The promotion of art was no longer only happening
in state events or exhibitions with juries, as in salon-type exhibitions. Galleries
and dealers were, since 1870, increasingly becoming the protagonists of the
economic system in art and influential arbiters of taste. Within this transfor­
mation of the art market, large-scale exhibitions began to become legitimate
cultural art platforms by disposing of direct art market actions, such as sales. If
biennials that started in the 1950s, such as Sao Paulo – with the exception of
documenta and the Paris Biennial (Jean 2017, 33) – still sold artworks, those
that started in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the Sydney Biennial, moved
rapidly towards a different system of economic organization (Gardner and
Green 2016). Not by chance, at the same time, specialized art fairs were
beginning to develop, which were a response to the need for a different
sort of commercial and networking platform in which galleries could directly
manage the promotion of artists (Morgner 2014).

3. Attempts at reopening the sales office

1973 was not the final act for the Venice Biennale’s sales office. From 1974
onwards, all of the quadrennial plans – the programmatic documents of each
board of directors which lasted four years – reflect that improving the charter
was their priority. Therefore, regardless of continued political interference, in
close collaboration with the Biennale’s president, each director of the visual
arts section was also involved in promoting innovations. After the experi­
mental years of the Biennale between 1974–1978, discussions around
reopening the sales office emerge from the minutes and other internal
documents. Most of the time it can be found as a note about a potential
discussion topic which did not give way to any formal action. This was the
 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 469

case, for example, for the 1979 December meeting of the international
committee of the visual art section, of which were present Harald
Szeemann, Michael Compton, Achille Bonito Oliva, together with the director
Luigi Carluccio and Martin Kunz.24 In the report of the meeting, the convenors
formally ask the Board of Directors to reopen the sales office which was
mainly intended to support artists (Figure 4).25
The two cases which will be taken into consideration here are examples of
practical attempts to reorganize a sales office. In 1982, after a deal between
the various political factions, the Italian Socialist party proposed Paolo
Portoghesi for the Biennale’s presidency, an Italian architect known to the
Biennale for the Strada Novissima exhibition displayed at the Corderie in 1980
(Szacka 2016). Meanwhile, the position of director for the visual arts section
was given to the candidate proposed by the Italian Communist Party,
Maurizio Calvesi, professor at Sapienza University in Rome. However, it was
only at the beginning of December 1984 that the third board of the Biennale
presented in a public hearing, together with the programmes of all five
sections, its quadrennial plan.26 Portoghesi and his team27 emphasized the
need to continue reforming the institution and to create solid administrative
and operational procedures, which would guarantee that the Biennale would

Figure 4. Proposal to Reopen the Sales Office, Minutes of the International Commitee,
December 1979. © Archivio Storico della Biennale di Venezia – ASAC, Fondo storico.
470 C. RICCI

fully accomplish the aim of becoming an international centre for cultural

production (Scarpa 1984). Despite this apparent accordance with the 1973
charter, the path to fulfil this goal ran counter to the previous Biennale’s
board resolutions. Portoghesi pointed to the difficulties offered by a multi­
disciplinary approach, breaking completely with the cultural guidelines of the
1970s shaped by Vittorio Gregotti, together with the President Carlo Ripa di
Meana.28
It was the programme of the visual arts section that took the sharper turn.
After presenting a brief synthesis of the following exhibition of 1986 on art
and science, Maurizio Calvesi advanced a hypothesis about the reopening of
the sales office and the reinstitution of awards.29 Calvesi believed that the
reintroduction of prizes would captivate the public and critics at an interna­
tional level but could also stimulate the quality of the exhibited artworks.
With regard to the sales office, he stated that it would ‘fulfil a particularly
heartfelt desire of both collectors and merchants alike’.30 Contrary to the
motivation of protecting artists, given the 1969 document to which his
mentor Argan contributed, the main argument seemed, in this case, to
connected to the need to respond to market demand.
Surprisingly, the news passed almost completely unnoticed. Only a few
journalists highlighted Calvesi’s proposals, focusing more on the reinstitution
of the awards proposal (which he succeeded in starting again in 1986) than
on the sales office reopening (Rizzi 1984), the mention of which merely
appeared in the list of proposed reforms. By the limited attention that this
event received, one could almost doubt that the 1970s had just taken place.
Given the short one-line motivation given by Calvesi in the documents, it
could be interpreted that the sales were merely meant to support the
economic situation of the institution. During the 1970s, financial support
from the state was limited and was given at the very last minute.
On the contrary, however, 1984 was an economically solid year for the
Venetian institution (Vecco 2002, 89–91). An analysis of the government’s
annual contribution to the Biennale from 1973 to 1984 reveals that there was
a significant rise. The state’s grant was initially set at approximately 1 billion
lire.31 During the 1970s, governmental contributions slowly rose to 2.5 billion
lire in 1976, 3 billion lire in 1977, 6 billion lire in 1980 and finally to 10 billion
lire in 1984 thanks to the legal amendment in which funds to Autonomous
Cultural Institutions in Italy were adjusted (90). As can be understood through
Marilena Vecco’s analysis, expenditure was also readdressed under
Portoghesi’s presidency, ensuring that cost savings and reductions took
place, hence respecting the statutory obligation to operate on a balanced
budget (87).
In short, when at the end of 1984, the Biennale’s section directors pre­
sented to the press their programmes, they also knew that they would be
 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 471

able to fulfil them. This fact makes it all the more obscure why they would
then reopen the Venice Biennale’s sales office.
A completely different scenario occurred in 1993 when the second sub­
stantial attempt at reopening the Venice Biennale sales office was made. The
Biennale was affected by delayed payment on behalf of the Italian govern­
ment as the consequences of the recession that hit Europe and Italy in 1992
and troubled by the profound political Italian crisis connected to
‘Tangentopoli’ and the end of the First Republic (Ricci 2020b, 79). In addition,
this re-opening proposal arrived at a very specific moment for the Biennale,
which was actively attempting yet another institutional reform before its
centenary anniversary (1895–1995).32
When on 22 May 1992, Achille Bonito Oliva was appointed the director of
the visual arts section33 the Biennale’s board was operating in a deferred way
while managing to keep the Biennale functioning (80). Nevertheless, Bonito
Oliva began to work immediately, organizing one of the most innovative but
also most expensive Biennales of the last 30 years. His programme included
over 15 exhibitions, not including collateral events. Additionally, his Biennale
extended beyond the boundaries of the Giardini and took over the city (84).
This grandeur could not be supported by the funds from which the
Biennale benefitted, which had remained unchanged for the last 10 years
and unadjusted to inflation and, until Feb–March, 1993, were missing, their
payment uncertain. Between 10 and 20 March 1993, heated discussions took
place at the board’s meetings. Calculations showed that funds were insuffi­
cient. On 19 March 1993, Bonito Oliva was forced to present a list detailing the
exhibitions to be cancelled.34
The attempt to reopen the sales office was made during these days and
seemed like a desperate measure. After a private discussion between Achille
Bonito Oliva and Raffaele Martelli, secretary of the Biennale,35 the project was
presented to the board on 30 April. Many of the board members were in
favour of reopening the sales department and a study group was formed to
further investigate the proposal’s feasibility (Figure 5).36
No public hearing was made in 1993. On the contrary, at the first leak, the
press unleashed controversy, which prompted the president to deny the
rumours.
The meeting’s minutes reveal that the proposal emerged as a response to
the Biennale’s dependence on state funding. By earning commissions on
sales, it was believed that the Biennale could be more autonomous and
regain a mediatory role with both artists and collectors as well as museums,
repositioning itself as a global trendsetter.
Reclaiming the Biennale’s international reputation was the principal drive
for reopening the sales office. It is worth noting that at the beginning of the
1990s, the Biennale was at an epochal low point: visitors were at a minimum
(Figure 6), the institution was short on funds and there were many
472 C. RICCI

Figure 5. Board’s resolution to study the Sales Office reopening, 30 April 1993. ©
Archivio Storico della Biennale di Venezia – ASAC, Fondo storico.
 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 473

Figure 6. Venice Biennale Visitors chart, by Clarissa Ricci.

operational inefficiencies. Moreover, urged on by the success of documenta

earlier in 1992, significant worries emerged in connection with new compe­
titors. Even if not at its peak, the so-called biennalization process emerged as
a fact (Belting, Buddensieg and Weibel 2012). The celebrations for the
Biennale’s centenary were looming and the remodelling of the 1973 reforms
was still necessary. In this scenario, while the reopening of the sales office was
not perceived as the solution, it could certainly provide the Biennale with
much-needed support in repairing its tarnished reputation.

4. Beyond Sales: Venice as a negotiation platform

In both 1984 and 1993, the sales office seemed an appropriate solution to
manage value exchange independently; the need to manage legitimation
power autonomously was a germ that had been present in the Biennale’s
constitution since its foundation.
The initial proto-fair structure of the Biennale in 1895 was the result of a
blend of different exhibition models that connected the tradition of the prizes
of the French Salon with the showcasing of industrial and artistic achieve­
ments in world fairs. However, a third model must also be taken into account,
which is the Secession37 (Bruno 2009, 13, 101–107). Started in Munich in 1893,
the Secession’s history runs parallel to the Venice Biennale’s development
and was highly influential in the areas that were once part of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire, to the point that the regulations of the Secession were a
direct model for the draft of those of the inaugural 1895 exhibition in
Venice.38 The Secession’s founding idea was to differentiate itself from the
474 C. RICCI

government’s conservative attitude by promoting international artists

Ludwig (2008, 25–58). The 1893 Secession in Munich, and then also those in
Vienna and Berlin, sold artwork in order to directly support the artists. Thus,
control over promotion seemed the key to the exhibition’s independence and
autonomy. It was also with this idea in mind that the Venice Biennale’s
founding committee decided to sell artworks (Ricci 2017).
However, at the Biennale the promotion of art and its legitimization was
perfected over time and was a system that comprised both awards and sales.
In 1895, only four prizes were awarded but in the following exhibition, the
prizes were divided over a greater number of smaller awards. It was after the
museum acquisition prizes proposal by Prince Giovanelli (Lamberti 1987) –
who after a bulk purchase of paintings at the Biennale in 1897, founded the
gallery of Modern Art, Ca’ Pesaro museum in Venice (Scotton 1999) – that the
award politics changed. Thus, after the third Biennale in 1899, all awards
became acquisition prizes. A conspicuous number of both national and
international museums would then reward artists by the acquisition of the
selected artwork in their collection. After 1930, monetary prizes were also
reintroduced for artists together with medals, honours and competitions
(Stone 1998, 78–79). However, it was only in 1938 that the legitimation role
of the Biennale was perfected through the institution of three ‘grandi premi’
(grand prizes),39 awarded to the best artist in the three main categories of
painting, sculpture and graphics. Taking into account both the awards system
and sales is central to understating the Biennale’s sales figures, since acquisi­
tion prizes were calculated as sales.
The Biennale thus was a promoter for both the Italian art market and the
formation of modern and contemporary collections. Local Venetian museums
and Italian museums, such as the modern art galleries of Milan, Bologna and
Turin, purchased art in Venice, as did foreign institutions such as the Museum
of Modern Art (MoMA) (Elenchi generali 1952). The purchases made by Italian
museums were often entrusted to commissions but regularly, also, to the
internal staff of the Biennale or directly to the director of the sales office who
would give advice and negotiate prices (Vecco 2002; Ricci 2017).
In 1984, when Calvesi proposed the reinstitution of sales together with
prizes, he meant reinstalling a specific system that would guarantee the
centrality of the Biennale in the art promotion mechanism, between the
artists and the museum. This was something that Francesco Dal Co, who
superintended the Venice Biennale’s sales office study commission in 1993,
also emphasized, stating that one of the first motivations of this continuous
re-thinking of sales was the desire to restore the tradition of museums
purchasing works exhibited at the Biennale: ‘Klimt’s Salomè, for example,
arrived in the Ca’ Pesaro collection via the acquisition route of the Biennale’.40
Closing the sales office meant that the Biennale had abdicated its role in
the art world as a central agent in connecting artists to collectors and
 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 475

museums. This was a role that, in the 1960s, was increasingly becoming the
prerogative of dealers and galleries. Umbro Apollonio, at the time curator of
A.S.A.C., pointed out in conversation with Alloway that dealers were a ‘highly
effective force in the art world’ (Alloway 1968, 22) and that ‘museums all over
the world, too, showed recent art in quantity’ (1968, 22). If the gallery’s
collaboration with the artist was deprecated in 1964, when Rauschenberg
was awarded the prize (Genauer 1964, 21; Bongard 1968, 288–289), in 1976,
such collaboration was instead considered pivotal to the organization of the
Biennale, which was significantly sustained by galleries and private donors.
Especially when the economic situation of the institution was fragile, i.e. in
the 1970s, it made it indispensable to ask the support of galleries and
collectors, who were listed at the beginning of the catalogue. Looking at
the number of supporting galleries for the exhibition Ambiente Arte in 1976
(Celant 1977), we can imagine it was impossible to conceive the Biennale
otherwise that year. Given the Biennale’s awareness of the rising importance
of galleries and dealers, it is unclear why the board continued to talk about of
selling artwork.
Another piece of this complex answer to the selling dilemma of the
Biennale can be found in its specific history of charters and regulations
which accompanied the transformation of the institution from a proto-fair
format towards that of a contemporary biennial.
The Biennale’s 1973 charter reform was incomplete. In an attempt to make
it a democratic, autonomous cultural institution41 that was not controlled by
a select few nor compromised by the market, the new charter created a venal
and direct dependence on the Italian government. This shift took place in a
historical period marked by rising terrorism and great instability due to
inorganic political coalitions (Ginsborg 1989). Hence, the democratic
approach that was supposed to be at the heart of a board composed of 19
members, each representing a political party or a stakeholder, became sub­
ject to politicking and political appropriations (Martini 2011). Additionally, as
it was obliged to operate on a balanced budget and its cash flow from the
government was irregular and unreliable, the Biennale often had to borrow
money from banks at high interest rates in order to anticipate late payments
(Vecco 2002). In this scenario, the sales office would have instead guaranteed
independence and autonomy.
A clue of this can be detected in a passage of Portoghesi’s first quadrennial
plan (1982–1986), in which he declares that the innovations presented would
have allowed the Biennale to operate in accordance with the ideals of 1968,42
including – paradoxically, we might say – the reinstating of the symbol of
commodification: the sales office.
If, in 1973, the Biennale reformer’s goal was to make the event more
culturally independent and hence more independent from the market and
any risk of commodification, in 1984 and 1993, the board’s aim was to make
476 C. RICCI

the Biennale independent from local and national political control and hence
more culturally autonomous. However, reinstating the sales office would
have meant an attempt to reproduce an art world and a format of the
Venice Biennale that no longer existed.
The charter reform of 1973, despite unfinished, was substantial and helped
the institution to become a contemporary art platform, closer to the docu­
menta model,43 moving away from a nineteenth-century exhibition format,
while retaining a legitimation role. When the awards were reintroduced as
Golden Lions in 1986, it was an effort to reassess its cultural reintroducing a
symbol of prestige and authority. Sales were considered equally important
because they would allow control over the node of museum acquisitions. Not
by chance, parallel to the reopening of the sales office – and especially in the
1990s – there were discussions over the constitution of a museum of con­
temporary art which was intended to shoulder the Biennale’s awards system.
It was imagined that this hypothetical museum would collate the best (or
awarded) artworks in the exhibition.44
What stopped de facto attempts and discussions about restarting sales
was the last major charter reform of 1998 (Sciullo 1998), which granted the
Biennale cultural and economic autonomy. After this date, the chief conse­
quence of the reopening of the sales office was press speculation calling for
the need for transparency in the art world. After the 1990s the proliferation of
biennials and art fairs and the enlargement of the global art scenario has
challenged the biennale on a different level. As a 2005 study of Badgadli and
Arrigoni on the positioning of the Venice Biennale showed, the major pre­
occupation must be asserting its uniqueness so as to affirm its authoritative
role (Bagdadli and Arrigoni 2005, 29–30). Today, as Beat Wyss well describes
with the bazaar metaphor, the Venice Biennale is also a negotiation platform
where art value is traded and ‘determined by uncensored public discourse’
(Wyss and Scheller 2011, 10). Regardless of the moralistic invocation of
transparency, the question of whether to sell or not to sell is not at the centre
of such discourse. The Biennale is an exceptional point of connection for the
two parallel economies of price and attention, which determine the trade in
both value and art.

Notes
1. Paolo Baratta was twice president of the Biennale between 1999 and 2001 and
then again from 2008 until 2019.
2. Baratta’s speech is available on La Biennale website at https://www.labiennale.
org/it/arte/2019/intervento-paolo-baratta. Last Accessed 25 February 2021. The
point on market was criticised by the press, i.e. by Scott Reyburn (2019).
3. The Historical Archive of the Venice Biennale was funded in 1928 (Dorigo 1975).
4. “these exhibitions of ours also contribute to its [Venice’s] financial growth by
attracting many more foreigners and through their ability to gradually turn it
 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 477

[the city] into one of the most important centres in the art market.” (translation
of the author), Minutes of the Municipal Council of Venice, session of 30 March
1894, La Biennale di Venezia Archivio Storico (ASAC), Scatole Nere, Fondo
Storico, Scatole Nere, b. 01, f.3. (La Biennale Archivio Storico = ASAC; Fondo
Storico = FS; Scatole Nere = SN; Arti Visive = AV; Esposizioni ed Eventi = ESP;
Amministrazione = AMM; Ufficio Vendite = UF; Registro Vendite = RV; Verbali e
Altri Materiali = VM; Registro = reg.; Box = b.; Folder = f.)
5. Provisional Budget, La Biennale, ASAC, FS, SN, b. 01, f.12.
6. The percentage retained on sales was initially 10 per cent and rose to 15 per
cent in 1924. Only in 1970 a clause stated that the percentage retained was 50
per cent for those artworks produced by the artists within the Biennale at the
temporary ateliers.
7. Many anecdotes on sales before the Second World War are recounted in
Romolo Bazzoni (1962).
8. Only in 1948 was the office subcontracted to another Italian gallerist, Emanuele
Barbaroux.
9. Ettore Gian Ferrari, letter to Romolo Bazzoni, n.d., in La Biennale, Asac, AV, ESP,
b. 77.
10.. La Biennale, Asac, AMM, reg. 6.
11. The Biennale during the 50s opened a call for the position of Gian Ferrari (Ricci
2017, 9; 11–12).
12. President Massimo Alesi, Letter to Ettore Gian Ferrari, 11 February 1957, La
Biennale ASAC, AV, ESP, b. 77.
13. Ettore Gian Ferrari, letter to Palma Bucarelli, 30 July 1956, La Biennale, ASAC, AV,
b.40.
14. Pino Pascali’s notification form, in La Biennale di Venezia, ASAC, FS. AV, b. 161.
15. Half of the artworks were owned by Galleria L’Attico and the other half by the
Alexander Iola Gallery in Paris. However, it was Fabio Sargentini, head of the
Galleria L’Attico, who acted on behalf of the artist. In a letter to the Biennale,
Sargentini asked to move Pascali’s work from the room of Colombo fearing that
his work would overshadow Pascali’s sculptures. Fabio Sargentini, letter to the
Biennale, in La Biennale ASAC, AMM, reg. 34.
16. Perilli’s painting prices would range from 1.000.000 lire to 4.000.000, Achille
Perilli notification form, in La Biennale di Venezia, ASAC, FS. AV, b. 161.
17. This hypothesis was wrongly perpetuated by a popular account on the history
of the Venice Biennale Enzo Di Martino (1995, 61).
18. R. D. L, 21 July 1938, n. 1517, Between 1938 and 1973 there were only minor
adjustments to this Statute, see Dorigo (1975, 707–716).
19. Report references La Biennale, ASAC, UV, RV, reg. 72.
20. When the 1968 Biennale closed in October the president and the Boards
resigned to allow the Italian government to make the needed reforms.
Since nothing happened, an autonomous group of people merged in an
assembly, then called the “staff assembly”, because most of the people who
joined were Biennale employees. After these measures the government
nominated a special commissioner to supervise the transition towards the
needed charter reforms.
21. Documento riservato [Reserved document], 1969, La Biennale, ASAC, AMM, reg.
34.
22. Idem.
23. Idem.
478 C. RICCI

24. The full International Committee of the Biennale that year also comprised Flavio
Caroli and Jean Leymarie.
25. Minutes of the International Committee meeting “Lavori dei commissari per la
mostra Internazionale”, 1–2 December 1979, 4, in La Biennale, ASAC, FS, AV, b.
312, f.2.
26. Program, “Programmazione Biennio 1985–1986”, Incontro pubblico, 1
December 1984, Ca’ Giustinian Venezia, La Biennale di Venezia, ASAC, FS, AV,
b. 376.
27. The directors of the sectors were: Maurizio Calvesi (art), Gian Luigi Rondi
(cinema), Carlo Fontana (Music) Franco Quadri (Teatro), Aldo Rossi
(Architettura). Paolo Portoghesi was president of the Venice Biennale twice:
1982–1986 and 1987–1992.
28. Ripa di Meana was the President and Vittorio Gregotti the director of the first
board (1974–1978) after the 1973 charter reform (Martini 2011)
29. “Maurizio Calvesi: linee programmatiche per il biennio 1985–1986”, 2–3, La
Biennale di Venezia, ASAC, FS, AV, b. 376.
30. “il ripristino dell’ufficio vendite, che verrebbe incontro ad una esigenza parti­
colarmente sentita sia dai collezionisti sia dai mercanti.” Ibidem.
31. This sum was made bigger by the other smaller contributions of the Province
and the Municipality.
32. “Esame progetto riforma statuto Ente per trasmissione Ministeri competenti,” La
Biennale di Venezia, ASAC, FS dep., b. 119.
33. Minutes, “LIX Riunione del Consiglio Direttivo,” 22 May 1992, La Biennale di
Venezia, ASAC, FS dep., b. 112.
34. Documents presented at the IV Board Meeting, 19 March 1992, La Biennale di
Venezia, ASAC, FS, VM, b. 120.
35. Achille Bonito Oliva letter to Raffaele Martelli, 24 March 1993, in Corrispondenza
interna “13 Agosto 1992 – 31 Dicembre 1993”, La Biennale di Venezia, ASAC, FS
dep., b. 521.
36. Minutes, “V Riunione Consiglio Direttivo,” 30 April 1993, 21–31, La Biennale di
Venezia, ASAC, FS dep., b. 122., “Resolution no. 72,” 30 April 1993 (Prot. Gen. no.
189), La Biennale di Venezia, ASAC, FS dep., busta n. 121; also in La Biennale di
Venezia, ASAC, FS., “Deliberazioni del Consiglio direttivo”, b. reg. 63
37. This point has also been raised by other scholars including Alloway (1968),
Lamberti ([1982] 2020), Wyss (2010) and Jones (2016).
38. Munich Secession Folder, La Biennale di Venezia, ASAC, SN, Attività 1895–1948,
b. 1/f. M; on the Secession model, see Bruno (2009, 13).
39. Grand Prizes were awarded at the Biennale from 1930 to 1968. In 1986, they
were introduced as prizes for best painter and sculptor. In 2008, the name was
changed to ‘Lions’.
40. Francesco Dal Co’, email with the author, 23 October 2015.
41. Italian Council of Ministers, New Regulations for the Autonomous Body ‘La
Biennale di Venezia’, no. 438, 26 July 1973, Article no. 1
42. “Piano Quadriennale di Massima delle attività e delle manifestazioni. 1983–1986”,
3, La Biennale di Venezia, ASAC, FS. AV. b. 376
43. On the importance of the documenta model cf Gardner and Green (2016).
44. Therefore, this idea of a contemporary art museum was highly debated in the
90s. An attempt to realize this project materialized during the organization of its
centenary anniversary, see Minutes “Verbale XXVIII Riunione Consiglio diret­
tivo”, 3–4, La Biennale, ASAC, FS dep., b. 142.
 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES 479

Notes on contributor
Clarissa Ricciis lecturer at the University of Bologna. She was a recipient of the Getty/
ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art (2019–2020) and previously she was
entrusted by Iuav University in Venice (2017–2019) with researching the foundation of
Arte Fiera. Moreover she was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City
and was awarded a Library Research Grant by the Getty Research Institute in Los
Angeles. She is author of an upcoming monograph on the 1993 Venice Biennale
(Marsilio 2021) and has written numerous essays. She was editor of many volumes as
the one on the Venice Biennale entitled Starting from Venice. Studies on the Biennale
(2011), latest being Double Trouble. Exhibitions facing fairs in Contemporary Art (2020).
She has also published the entries of ‘Venice Biennale’ for Grove Art Dictionary (Oxford
University Press, 2018). Moreover she is founder and editor of OBOE journal.

ORCID
Clarissa Ricci http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4317-5236

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