Taking Venice

TAKING VENICE The Rauschenberg Factor tells the little-known Cold War story of the heist of a crown of European culture. The players in this high stakes game of art and politics included a Washington insider with USIA connections, a New York museum director with international ambitions, and a visionary entrepreneur inventing the art market. Caught in their maneuvering and central to our feature length documentary was Robert Rauschenberg who just wanted to make art and mischief, and whose innovations were creating an art revolution. His materials were the detritus of the world around him, his belief that by changing the focus, art could change how people experienced that world. In 1964 the band of three players deployed Rauschenberg's work to challenge the cultural dominance of Europeans more open to Soviet ballet than an America they defined as cars and Coca-Cola.