Local Artist David Middlebrook to Attend Venice Biennale

If art shows were a mountain, The Venice Biennale would be at the pinnacle. It would be the observatory on top of Mount Hamilton, or the big box on top of Mount Umunhum.

Someone just told me that when Venice holds the Biennale, it is like carnival in Rio, nothing tops it. It is the center of the art world. It’s held on odd-numbered years, while the Venice Architectural Biennale occurs on even-numbered years. It has acres of world’s fair type pavilions and hundreds of thousands of visitors whenever it occurs.

Well, guess what? The next time around, our tiny little Los Gatos will be represented at Venice Biennale in the person of David Middlebrook, longtime Los Gatos resident and ex-San Jose State art professor, living right near downtown with his wife Lita Ruble.

Middlebrook has been showing his work internationally for many years but even he was surprised when he received an invitation to show his work at this very prestigious event.

The Biennale was organized more than 100 years ago in Venice. It has evolved into an institution which primarily provides a forum for art collectors, museum and art gallery curators and critics, and the public, to view and study the finest of contemporary art from all over the world.

There are other cities which hold similar, smaller biennales but they are all inspired and modeled after the Venice Biennale. Just as Oxford or Stanford, the Biannle has its own “campus” for administration and education, as well as displays of art, but there are several dozen other sites close to the main “campus” which provide additional space for the display of the art.

A number of countries maintain their own pavilions for year round display of their contemporary art in conjunction with the Biennale. Make no mistake, this is a very large, very influential and very prestigious art institution, both in time and place.

Since Middlebrook told me of this honor, I’ve been talking to my art friends and gleaning the web to learn what I can about the paramount Biennale, and the sense I get is that it was started so that great artists of the day would be acknowledged and supported before they died, not one or two centuries afterwards, when, obviously, the artists were inaccessible. And, it has evolved greatly since its start.

The value of an artist’s work immediately jumps to new levels after being part of the Biennale, and the holder of such art, their reputation and worth jump as well, be it a museum, a gallery, what about maybe the artist’s hometown?

Art Bridge was developed out of the frustration of Los Gatos and area artists, frustration generated by the lack of awareness of Los Gatos officials and the Los Gatos general public of the professional and very substantive artists who have been living, working and getting famous here. However, they are not even known by their own town. Here is an opportunity to begin to rectify that.

In the art world, this is the World Series, the Super Bowl, the Olympics and the Oscars all rolled into one. Let’s see how much support we can muster for this truly world class artist, who has already won the Oscar, the Olympic gold medal, the Stanley Cup, simply by being invited to this “Biennale.”

The kink in all this, is, unlike these sporting events I’ve mentioned, where the players get bonuses for winning, to participate in the Venice Biennale, Middlebrook has to come up with $40,000 to cover his share of expenses for the event. If anyone knows of some art aficionado/investors who would like to participate in such grandiose affairs, it would be very helpful to put them in touch with him.

He can be reached at 18404 Montevina Rd., Los Gatos, or davidmiddlebrook@earthlink.net.