Venice served as both exhibition site and working landscape during Andy Warhol’s September 1977 visit. The city’s boats, lagoon, and historic surroundings framed a practical undertaking: getting paintings through customs and installing them at Il Prisione, where the exhibition was scheduled to run from September 16 to October 8. The trip’s opening and closing days brought the project into contact with the city’s weather and shifting ground as well as its art spaces.

Arrival and exhibition preparations

Warhol and his party flew from Paris to Venice, then traveled by boat taxi to Hotel Danieli and went to lunch at La Colomba. The exhibition was being organized by Doug Christmas with Autillo Codognato, but the paintings were still held in customs in Rome. At lunch the next day at Harry’s Bar, Christmas and Codognato discussed the delay and planned to contact the ambassador in Rome to help move the works along.

The exhibition venue, Il Prisione, stood beside the Doge’s Palace. Despite its name, Warhol recorded that it was a fashionable men’s club, not a prison. He found its high ceilings and modest scale suitable for the show. The display boards ran around the walls, and Christmas proposed painting them flesh-colored. A large banner bearing Warhol’s name and the exhibition dates was displayed on the venue’s roof; others were placed in San Marco Square and on the route toward the Accademia. Jed Johnson photographed the banners, making the exhibition visible around the city before its opening.

Installing the paintings

On September 16, after the paintings finally arrived from Rome, the Italian workers began hanging them. Warhol noted that the walls’ flesh-colored paint was not quite right but considered the result acceptable. The paintings’ close-up images of nude bodies surprised the workers, who joked among themselves rather than concentrating on the installation. Christmas and his assistant Hilary ended up doing much of the work themselves. Warhol compared the difficulty to the trouble Paul Morrissey had faced with crews in Rome during the production of Frankenstein and Dracula, where, as Warhol understood it, workers had also become uncooperative after losing confidence in the director.

The installation was preceded by smaller encounters between the exhibition and its visitors. Before the opening, Warhol went to Il Prisione to sign posters; a high-school art teacher from San Francisco had also left a Campbell’s can for him to sign. On opening day, Warhol and Johnson went sightseeing and made last-minute purchases for the office before meeting the group for lunch at Cipriani. Christmas did not appear nervous despite the paintings’ late arrival, and once they reached the venue, the hanging proceeded in time for the show to open.

Departure and the earthquake

The stay ended with an abrupt reminder that Venice’s setting could unsettle the visit as readily as it could frame it. After dinner on September 16, Warhol felt his chair slipping and held onto the table; a waiter advised him to change seats. Later, as rain delayed the boat taxis, the party walked back through the streets. Fred Hughes slipped once, but the group got him home safely. In bed, Warhol felt the building move.

The following morning, Warhol told Johnson that an earthquake had struck during the night. Johnson initially thought the movement had been caused by wind, but a painting had fallen at Codognato’s house, confirming Warhol’s impression. The party left for the airport by speedboat taxi. In the diary, the incident closes the Venetian episode with a sharp contrast: the carefully managed exhibition had depended on schedules, customs, and labor, while the city’s ground and water remained beyond that control.