This was a Venice Biennale where the critics booed, the cardinal banned, the Americans beamed, and nearly everyone boozed. Apparently incensed by some rubbishy but relatively innocuous nudes, Giovanni Cardinal Urbani, the Roman Catholic Patriarch of Venice, declared the international art show off limits to all priests and nuns. President Antonio Segni thereupon absented himself as official host and prize giver. But this scarcely dimmed the carnival spirits of the cocktail set. Greek-born Iris Clert won the unofficial party-thrower prize by hiring a yacht, tying it up in the Grand Canal, and...
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