Goodbye Venice!

A few last bits:

Here are a couple of photos taken one night after dinner.  The location is very close to our apartment.

And now for the rest of what we saw of the Biennale.  Again, it will just be a taste of it...  plus I can't possibly post all of the related information such as artist's name and country of origin.  (Though, if it is important for you to know about specific pieces, email me and I'll get the info. to you).

This is the James Turrell room... brilliant!  He modifies your perception of space with only lighting.  Walking into it, you are convinced that you are about to walk into a wall, (that orange space is the portal).  Once through to the other side, the beautiful blue room emerges, but slowly because it seems as if you are surrounded by mist and nothing is defined... including the floor.  Loved this!!

And more:

                         A wonderful dragon made from inner tubes and hand-stitched together

                      

 Intricate wax sculptures...  candles!  Lit at the beginning of the exhibit and will continuously burn until November.  And yes, that one on the left is a candle too!!

From a room full of these huge and wonderful clay sculptures;  I believe the title of the entire assemblage was, "Now I Can Be With My Son".

This is a panel (and some closeups) of The Faces of One Thousand Warriors

Sculpture outside the Arsenale

 Wonderful, detailed sculptures

 Photography

We went to three outlying islands on our last day in the Venice area:

   Burano, famous for colorful buildings and lace

Tintoretto:  the first settlers in Venice were here 

 Murano, where the glassblowers produce magic plus copious amounts of souvenirs

The last evening

Mary (on the left) and Lillian wave goodbye as they waved hello one week ago

The week went by much too fast.

Active "e's" and the Cafe Florian

The lapse in blog entries cannot be attributed to sloth for once.  The "e's" in the air were apparently besieged again, and for three days we couldn't access the web. But now I am in Florence and at least in this location the "e's" are freely flowing (at the moment).

So let's see... what have you missed? Tons of walking around pretty much everywhere. One day Ulrika, Dawn and I braved San Marco Square in the midday... and sat down in the famous Florian Cafe to listen to the band and sip various palliative elixirs. I would say that this will be a once-in-a-lifetime event, since just listening to the music from a seated position incurs an 8 euro per person charge. But it felt somewhat elegant being there, and the people-watching was superb!

St. Mark's Square: we are facing the Basilica, which dates from the 11th century; the tower in the foreground is the Camponile, built in the 20th century to replace a lighthouse which burned down

                                             Marble portico surrounding the square

And the band plays on,,,

Of course, food continues to be a focal point.  We've had some good meals out, and also had a fine one in the apt. cooked by Lilian and Mary.

The next post will be the Biennale Pt. 2 and I can't even consider writing it up without a lot more sleep than I've had!  So, Good Night and let's hope that the "e's" get a good night's rest as well!!

An Italian Innovation

The kitchen of our apartment is pretty much standard except that there is a little washing machine behind one of the cabinets and also there is this:

This is a built-in dish drainer that can stay hidden behind cabinets and doesn't take up counter space.

Brilliant, eh??

                                                                            

Saturday: Mostly A Day Of Rest

I slept for many hours, which ate away a large chunk of the morning.  In the afternoon, Ulrika and I walked down to the zatere, bordering the Giudecca canal, and sat in an outdoor cafe for an hour or so.  There was some sort of big "doing" afoot, since as we watched, the parade of humanity began to look increasingly spruced up..  (And naturally all of this occurred on the one day I did not have any sort of camera at hand).  Women in long formal gowns, or shorter dresses, accompanied by well-suited men, walked around our viewing station... providing us with much to comment upon.  We became the Joan Rivers and Melissa of the Dorsoduro.  Eventually the fashion show people all moved to two large boats which I suspect would take them to some outlying island for a wedding.  Personally, I had never before seen so much obviously couture clothing;  it was like one giant art show which could be viewed by sitting on one's derriere while sipping a Gin and Tonic.  Perfecto!!

We had booked a dinner reservation for the reputedly good Al Casin dei Nobili, so at 7:30 we had a fine seat in their coveted outdoor section.  I was accompanied by Mary and Lilian; Ulrika had other plans.  Dinner was very good, although certainly not cheap.

Tomorrow my friend Dawn will get here, and we have all been much anticipating her arrival.

The Biennale, Day 1

Ulrika and I have begun our immersion into this fantasm of comtemporary art, La Biennale.  Yesterday (Friday) morning we got an early start and went to the Giardini.  On the way, there was a stop to get fruit:

The Giardini is a beautiful park where many countries have their own pavilions. It is an exhausting and mind-blowing trek to see all of them in one day, but somehow we managed to do it.  There was so much...  it will not be possible to show or even mention most of it.  But here is a little taste:

One of the main "streets"

The Korean Pavilion

This is called Self-Hatred; the molded image attacks the mold. 

And for the other side of it, La Pieta or Self-Love.

This Pavilion also contained a room with two really large framed mirrors on opposing  walls,  and smaller framed mirrors on the opposite opposing walls.  These all appeared to be completely blank until speakers would broadcast a tremendous crash with breaking glass, and simultaneously the mirrors would begin to show cracks and holes, and the smaller mirrors were heavily damaged (apparently) .  The mirrors look completely normal before the "crash", and completely "realistic" as shattered.

                                                                      The French Pavillion

 Called "Chance", the French Pavillion looks at the role that good luck or bad luck play in our lives.  The main room contains a huge metal apparatus which acts as a conduit for a continuous strand of paper(?) or teflon on which pictures of new-born babies have been printed.  An alarm goes off sporadically, the entire aparatus comes to a halt, and the face of the baby in a specified postition flashes on a large screen.  Perhaps this means  good luck or bad luck, but very randomly this one child has been singled out and will live with the consequences of this event for the rest of their lives.

In smaller side rooms flanking the main one, huge digital counters show the number of births and deaths that have occurred in a specific period of time.

                                                                               

                                         I wish I remembered which Pavillion this was in but I don't

     This was so beautiful to see, like an unbelievably long piece of oragami, made of what looked like very heavy waxed paper.    

Ethiopia

Closeup

    OK, so here's the interesting story about this.  A monk who saw himself as a healer spent his entire life drawing these beyond-intricate art pieces. And he did them to capture the devils and evil spirtis inhabiting people with problems (or maybe people who were seen by others as being problems).  The idea is that the spirits are trapped forever within the work and thus the person is cured.  This closeup shows the encased spirits.

                                            

      Country represented unknown, but this was interesting because it's a theatre for an Opera seen as an open collaboration between countries:  inclusive vs. exclusive.

    The stage is made of mirror.  "Illuminations" is  the theme of this year's Biennale.  There is a widespread use of mirror.

OK, this is getting really long, I know.  So here is just a taste of more without the explanation, for you just to see the images:

These "boats" with video and audio of waves was the Venetian entry, and very beautiful.

I will leave you with a couple of my favorite smaller details.  These are "assignments" in a classroom installation:

And that was only from the Giardini...  much more to come.  Go and get a good rest!  That is my plan as well.

At Home in Venice

We began to settle into our apartment Thursday around noon, and it's everything I had hoped it would be:  a great kitchen, three bedrooms, a large living room... etc.   Here are a few pictures:

The front door

The canal

Bench to the left of front door

Looking right

Looking left

Living room

It was slowly dawning on me that the second phone I had gotten from Verizon and activated in LAX was not going to actually work!  It wouldn't complete any calls, or surf the web. Plus, there was no way to call them to get it worked out.  So Ulrika and I set out to find a phone store, thinking that all I needed was a new SIM card.  We located a TIM store (popular chain for phone services) and began a comedic communication with a charming young man who spoke much better English than I do Italian...  but just barely.  This process consisted of a lot of hand gesturing, shoulder shrugging, laughter and ultimately the purchase of a phone, a SIM card and a data packackage.  It was necessary to buy the phone because the rental phone wasn't unlocked and so couldn't accept a new SIM card. 

"Say Fromaggio!!"... Donato our TIM store host, and his coworker.  It must be true that Italian men have an enhanced sense of fashion, as Donato was sporting shoes that matched his shirt as well as madras plaid bermuda shorts.

We went back to the apartment, rested a bit and while Ulrika was off getting food, our other two housemates arrived.  Deeply involved in trying to figure out the new phone , I  looked up to see two smiling faces bobbing about outside the kitchen window... Lilian and Mary from the UK.   This was the first time we'd met face-to-face, but they were feeling like old friends by the time Ulrika returned.  She had not only found a large supermarket, but a wine store as well that sells "house" wine from big jugs.  The concept is that you bring in your recycled bottles and have him fill them up with whatever you choose.  But he gave her a bottle and so returned with a big plastic bottle of cabernet sauvignon which cost less than a similar-sized bottle of Coke would have in the States.  Celebration all around!

The four of us walked out into the neighborhood and found an excellent restaurant.  After a great meal of gourmet vegetarian fare, I retired to my room for sleep.  We  planned to head to the Biennale the following day... very exciting!!