There was a lot of waiting for my train platform number to appear on the board in Venice most of the late morning. Amazingly with the six train trips in Italy, each and every time it featured a board like this, my train was the last to post usually at the five minute departure point. Stressful!
I finally made it to my Florence hotel in the late afternoon - it was very hot and humid and I would spend the rest of my trip here dodging rainstorms and intense sunshine. My Room without a View:
...that proved to be excellent people watching for the duration of my stay.
Surprisingly this was a hotel room without artwork. I kept trying to justify the chandelier as an installation piece...
...but ultimately decided on covering up the mirror.
The most gaudy bedspread in the entire country proved to be an ideal "artwork" cover:
When removing the bedspread and readjusting the mirror, I discovered an inoperable safe!
That was just the beginning of the bizarre things that would take place in this hotel. One day a key appeared for 48 hours on the bedside table. I didn't touch it, shocked that another key would appear in my life after returning Braydee's earlier this summer.
Once I finally decided I was going to take it, it disappeared...
... only to be replaced by a pair of cleaning gloves left on top of my suitcase.
Once again this was ironic because I had thrown my three remaining clear water sample gloves in the top of my bag on the way out the door that day.
No such luck hanging money from curtains in this hotel. It looks like they were once there but sadly, no longer.
Off to the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace). I was really glad I signed up for the Secret Itineraries tour. It was the most English I heard in days (1.5 hours worth!). Here is the courtyard prior to the tour where I waited on a bench with a yellow English sticker.
The golden hallway heading to the third floor which was divided into two levels (think Being John Malkovich's 7 1/2 floor in terms of claustrophobia). The tour guide opened a door and all of a sudden everything was made of wood and we were in the area where the equivalent of the Secret Service worked. It also was the location where the archives were once held of all the important event's in Venice's history filed under a system of paintings with the Doge's family coat of arms.
We also saw the "upscale" prisons where Cassonova was kept and where he escaped. The torture chamber was also on the agenda. All of this was located in the windows seen in the bottom portion of this photograph below.
After the tour, I wandered through the giant hallways filled with paintings from dozens of Venetian artists. The Veronese paintings were probably my favorites of the day ("probably" because I'm still a Tintoretto fan). I waited in line to take the elevator to the top of the crowded Campanile for some incredible views of Venice. San Giorgio Maggiore below.
If you look closely you can see Anish Kapoor's Ascension protruding from the church.
Piazzo San Marco - setting up for the Sting concert that would take place a couple days later.
I could watch the boat traffic all day. Questions that arose: is there AAA for boats? What happens when you run out gas? How do you pull over into the shoulder? How often to the police boats pull over speeders? How do you signal? Clearly I need boat training.
The crowded view facing S. Maria d. Salute. I realized this had photographic (i.e. Martin Parr) potential when I accidentally left the flash on.
While waiting to get to the perfect uncrowded view, I began to take photographs of other people blocking my way.
After the Campanile, I had every intention of hopping the vaporetto to Certosa to see the Rebel exhibition but for some unknown reason, the vaporetto service was operating on 1/4 capacity on a Friday in the height of tourist season (enter great annoyance that my 3-day pass became useless on the third day). I finished the day by walking to the Rialto Bridge through San Marco, back to the Arsenale to photography Julian Schnabel on a trashcan, and then Zattere to leave for Florence in the late morning.
I obtained a "clear" water sample in front of the Palazzo Zenobio (the Armenian and Iceland Pavilions were located here) because it was very easy to reach the water which I had avoided touching at all costs prior to this moment. Out came the bright green gloves and the vial Nate Larson gave me.
There are now three preconceived notions I have had in life that continue to strike me as astounding how wrong I was before trying them: 1) swim caps keep your hair dry when lap swimming (wrong), 2) snowshoes enable you to glide effortlessly on top of the snow (wrong), and 3) when you acquire a sample of ugly, disgusting water, it should look ugly and disgusting - not clear (wrong).
As the sample ever so surprisingly looked transparent (and this was my best opportunity to float something within very close range of the Biennale), out came my a postcard. I chose Barton Springs for the obvious reason of matching monochromes.
... and it nosedived so quickly to the bottom of the canal that I barely had time to take a photograph of it (yes, that's it looking like a condom in the middle). I was disappointed! All my tests floated so well. My main conclusion that the only thing I could do was try again and it would be on the canal on the island of Certosa in front of the Rebel exhibition that was actually showing Ed Ruscha's artwork.
I'm very excited about the new documentary on Anselm Kiefer as my love for Kiefer's artwork rivals that of Ed Ruscha's. In the NY Times: "The idea for a film arose when Mr. Kiefer, eager for someone to document the mysterious universe he had created, invited Ms. Fiennes to visit Barjac. “It was a completely kind of mad and disorientating labyrinth,” Ms. Fiennes, 44, said over tea in the living room of a friend’s apartment here. She wandered the grounds, navigating tunnels illuminated with skylights or single bulbs, discovering a crypt and an amphitheater and a patch of land scattered with concrete towers inspired by the biblical story of Lilith that resemble modern ruins. “I was amazed,” she said. “There is an inherent theatricality or cinematic quality to what he’s made there that leant itself to filmmaking.”
One of my favorite exhibitions at the Venice Biennale was Kiefer's Salt of the Earth. It was located in the Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, an old Venetian salt storage facility built in the 15th century.
From the press release: "...consisting of a structure in which are hung photographs of landscapes on sheets of lead submitted to a process of electrolysis that has covered them in a green patina: a colour underlying hope and announcing the union of opposites."
From the front.
From the back.
Two details from the middle.
These are the photographs I came back still thinking about. These are the photographs I once longed to make.
I woke up at 8 AM (!!) with sun streaming through the crack in the curtain. Last night a bat was flying around the courtyard and two lizards were climbing the walls. After another hotel breakfast, I went straight to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection which was showing Ileana Sonnabend: The Italian Portrait. Some highlights:
Jeff Koons, Buster Keaton
Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled (Venetian)
Arman, Portrait of Mike
Andrea Robbins and Max Becher, Venice, Las Vegas #3
Highlights from the Permanent Collection:
• Giacomo Balla's Mercury Passing Before the Sun
• and my most coveted object in the entire museum was Yves Tanguy's (my favorite Surrealist) earrings for Peggy Guggenheim made in 1938.
The view of the Grand Canal from the sculpture garden was equally incredible. I've deduced I can watch how traffic moves (and what kind of boats - UPS, police, armored bank boats, gondolas, water taxis, etc.) in the canal indefinitely.
[One more I'm going to be so tired of these mozzarella and tomato paninis for lunch if I have to eat too many more of them before I return.]
The Venice in Venice exhibition was a big let down mainly because of the space. Why? It's location in the Palazzo Contraini dagli Scrigni was less than ideal for many reasons. The artwork represented (Robert Irwin, Ed Kienholz, etc.) was mainly from the 1960s-70s which did not go well with centuries old decor. A Kienholz bathtub sculpture surrounded by wallpaper and furniture 300 years old, did nothing to separate the artwork from the location. I learned that when I am overwhelmed with so much artwork, I start to concentrate on presentation and this one clearly failed. The view outside the window looking toward the Grand Canal was really nice however. The Cyprus Pavilion with Elizabeth Hoak-Doering's schizophrenic, moving furniture pieces as kinetic sculptures to make drawings held my attention for quite some time. This table proved to be the most effective mark maker though I was vying for the mattress but it didn't move around as much and the drawing was more static.
I was enamored with this presentation by Galim Madinov and Zauresh Terekby in the Central Asia pavilion. Here are 250 paintings displayed as if they are books - I love the overlap, the sheer amount, and the objectification of the flat object.
Two of my favorite paintings spotted out of the corner of my eye at the Contini Gallery (unfortunately I can't find the name of the artist on their website!).
Next up... OLD (1575-1581) artwork: the Tintorettos at Scuola Grande of Saint Roch where I couldn't take any photographs but it looks just like this (via):
I spent a great deal of time wishing I had a roving mattress underneath the ceiling so I could view the artwork better. The stationary mirrors placed sporadically throughout the space were not up to par. It was my first introduction to (gasp) liking Renaissance art! The only disappointment was the (yet more) scaffolding that covered 1/2 of The Last Supper. The light was also very poor in some areas of the Upper Hall.
Next up Anish Kapoor's Ascension on the island of San Giorgio. Waiting for the steam to rise was like watching for Old Faithful. I gave it 30 minutes but it never happened and I even stuck my head in one more time thirty minutes later to no avail. The next two images are examples of all the postcards by the front door of what the piece was supposed to look like:
When in actuality, it was doing this (nothing):
My mind drifted to the space as I was waiting and I couldn't help but wonder if the steam from Kapoor's piece would harm the artwork in the church but that doesn't seem to be that big of an issue in Venice.
The last exhibition of the day was Real Venice, a fundraising project of the charity Venice in Peril. Fourteen photographers were asked to make images based on their experiences in Venice, Italy and donate a print.
This Nan Goldin photograph, Leonardo with his Grandfather, Palazzo Papadopoli, held my attention because I've been spending my days constantly wondering about how rich this city once was versus it's current state. Here lies a boy posing in front of his well-off grandfather in a different time, yet the same social class.
Coming soon... my feeble attempt to float some postcards in Venice.
