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As they progress, parallel art exhibitions are popping up around the city, adding lesser-known works via de Kooning and an installation that has infuriated locals.
By Farah Nayeri
Willem de Kooning had never been to Italy when he went to Venice for a rendezvous in September 1959. Things got complicated, so the Dutch artist quickly traveled to Rome and was absolutely fascinated. He returned immediately to stay with only about 4 months in the Italian capital and returned in the summer of 1969.
These dizzying escapades are those of “Willem de Kooning and Italy,” a new exhibition that opened Wednesday at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. It’s part of a rich schedule of events timed to coincide with the Venice Art Biennale, not all of which appeal to Venetians.
The Biennale, which has welcomed the cream of the crop of new artists since its inception in 1895, attracted a record 800,000 visitors at its last edition in 2022. This year, 331 artists and collectives are featured in the central exhibition (curated by Adriano Pedrosa), and dozens of artists are exhibiting their paintings in 87 national pavilions. In addition to the Biennale, dozens of coinciding exhibitions are planned, including that of De Kooning.
The exhibition illustrates, through 75 works, how brief trips to Italy altered the trajectory of the Dutch-born, New York-based artist, universally identified as a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism, one of the greatest postwar art movements in the United States. .
Without the stops in Rome, art historian Gary Garrels said, “I can’t believe I ever made sculptures. “Garrels, a former senior curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and co-organizer of the exhibition with Mario Codognato, noted that during de Kooning’s stay in Rome in 1969, the artist began making small clay figures in one of the sculptor’s foundries. Herzl Emanuel, some of which were later cast in bronze, and that in the following 4 years, sculpture became a central activity. The Academy will provide a nearly complete set of sculptures.
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