During my recent trip to Venice for the opening of the Biennale, I couldn't help but notice the trashy tchotchkes on sale all over the city. As chic black-clad Eurotrash and artworld biennialistas jumped on and off of vaporettos, tottering in high heels, chatting on global cell phones, they did not seem to notice how their elite world of art intersected with mass marketed canonical art history. The iconic David, conflated with the cultural stereotype of the well-endowed, hypermasculine, predatory, womanizing Italian Casanova was peddled from carts selling shorts (and a few aprons, perhaps riffing on the popularity of Italian cuisine) including a telling detail of the sculpture.
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