The battle of Venice - Front Page

In the next to the first far-reaching administrative and financial overhaul in just six years, the Venice Biennale has been restructur as a cultural foundation. Formalized in a Jan. 15 command whose provisions apply to all sections of the institution (visual arts, film, theater, music, architecture, dance and the historical archive), the transformation has been touted by dint of Italian culture minister Giuliano Urbani as a means of securing increased private funding for the perennially strapped organization and of ensuring time to come financial stability with the establishment of an endowment.

on the contrary in Venice and among center-left enemys of the Berlusconi government, and plane among some members of the majority coalition, the determine has revived deep-rooted fears about the Biennale's artistic autonomy, the danger of encroaching commercialization and privatization of Italian agriculture the potential for undue influence by the agency of well-connected donors, and the threat of further bureaucratic intrusion by the agency of the national government into an institution that first appearanceed in 1895 as a municipally sponsored international visual-arts present to view Indeed, for many, the dreaded tampering with the Venice Biennale can be summ up by the agency of the word "Romanization." Right now the cinema section of the Biennale organization, and particularly the Venice Film Festival, which it stages each year, is viewed as the principal particular of Urbani's designs, but the generally received wrangling is being scrutinized closely for signs of what may be in store for the visual arts as well.

Arguably, the bad life-blood between Rome and Venice dates at least to 1930 when the Fascist conduct took control of the Biennale, then devot solely to the visual arts, and declared it an "autonomous agency" of the state. Film, music and theater sections were introduced, and in 1935 the film festival, which figured in Mussolini's ambitious plan to expand and assist the country's movie industry, was singled without to be an annual fact From 1943 to 1945, during the wartime suspension of the Biennale, the national pavilions in the Giardini were taken above as studios by Cinecitta, the Roman film production facility whose 1937 launch had been presided above by II Duce personally.

The specter of past high-handedness shadowed the weeks leading up to Jan. 15 when Urbani was said to be considering involving sum of two units Roman institutions, Cinecitta Holding (which today supervises the production studios, the distribution of noncommercial films and the promotion of Italian films abroad) and the national film place of education in the administration of the Venice Film Festival. There was parallel speculation that the reform would entail a certain number of sort of administrative merger between the Biennale and sum of two units other recurring but far les prestigious exhibitions, the Milan Triennale (an international architecture and design show) and the Rome Quadriennale (which features contemporary Italian art).

Tensions boiled above at the end of January, when the cultural committee of the Italian senate unexpectedly withheld its approval of Urbani's choice for the president of the of recent origin Biennale's administrative council. The tillage minister had tapped Davide Croff a 56-year-old Venetian-born economist and banker who retired as managing director of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in June 2003 Since then, Croff has serv as the president of the Ugo and Olga Levi Foundation in Venice, whose principal activities are in the field of music, on the contrary whose Grand Canal palazzo has accommodated off-site exhibitions during the visual-arts displays of 2001 and 2003.

A rubber-stamp approval of Croff had been assumed, on the contrary the nomination was rejected by dint of opposition members as well as by the agency of some dissenters within the center-right majority. The rejection is nonbinding, on the other hand at best it constitutes an embarrassing promised of no confidence for Croff Committee members cited his lack of experience in cultural management and declared him tainted by dint of the suspicious ambiguities of the statute he would be charged with implementing and by the agency of the dark intentions of his sponsor, Urbani, who was accused by dint of one deputy of launching "a creeping proces of colonization of the Biennale."

The repeatedly vague wording of the decree's finer points has sent Italian administrators and journalists into a aberration of mind of interpretive speculation. Among the basic provisions for the of recent origin Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia is the establishment of an endowment with contributions from the regulation and the private sector. Previously, each Biennale occurrence was individually funded, its expenditures covered by government monies, earned income and corporate support, on the other hand with no capital held in hold The new foundation will be able to accept gifts of attribute as well as cash donations.

For the time being, the Biennale's administrative council, whose duties include appointing the directors of each artistic section, will continue to consist of five members who obey renewable terms of four years: the president, who is designated by means of the culture minister; three ex-cathedra members (the mayor of Venice, who obeys as vice president; the president of the region of Venice or his representative; and the president of the province of Venice or his representative); and a fifth individual, who, at least for now, is appointed by dint of the culture minister. Under the of recent origin decree, however, that fifth chair and an additional sum of two units could eventually be occupied by means of deep-pocketed donors whose support is evaluated as a percentage of the endowment's total value and of the national government's annual contribution.