A brief article in the Gazzettino Saturday added a few details about this artefact, which I pass along.
It’s called “Castello Cube.” I hadn’t realized it had a name, it seemed such a generic object. Not that the name is any less generic.
The creator goes by the nom de guerre Niclas Castello. Now I begin to comprehend. And it is being shown in Castello! It’s almost like destiny.
His real name is Norbert Zerbs. I myself would have totally kept this name. Be proud of your heritage, Zerbs!
The cube sat on the riva Ca’ di Dio for 24 hours, it says here, so that would also explain the security guards. There were ten of them.
It weighs 186 kilos (410 pounds) of 24-carat 999.9 fine gold. I’ll admit that for some reason I didn’t want this to be true. I was telling Lino that it was probably an empty cube made of iron sheets covered with gold leaf. Nope. It is precisely what it appears to be: A block of solid gold.
Never before in history has this much gold been worked into one artwork.
The value of this mass of metal is about 12,000,000 dollars.
Zerbs’s net worth is listed at 51,000,000 dollars.
I notice how many facts about this object have to do with quantities. Don’t know why this seems to fascinate people. A man in Alaska told me that a tourist looking at Denali once asked him how much it weighed.
It was displayed in Central Park in New York City last February.
An art historian named Dieter Buchhart made the following declaration (I translate): “It is a conceptual work that seems to have arrived from another world and now is standing on the paving-stones of Venice, without a pedestal.”
I’m as keen on conceptual works as the next person, even if the concept eludes me, but here’s a concept: By all means bring us a cube of gold that seems to have arrived from another world. Just stop talking drivel.
“The artwork is exhibited in public places so that it is accessible to everyone,” said another expert, “and people have the opportunity to rediscover art in the open space.”
I’ll tell you what — you’d need 186 kilos of self-confidence to put something you call art into an open space in a city that is composed almost entirely of art. I might discern something artistic about it if it were standing, say, in an acre of alfalfa, or drifting on a raft down the Monongahela river. But placing an object purporting to be art in Venice takes nerves of tungsten carbide.
Anyway, it’s gone now, continuing its quest to find a pedestal.
These golden objects are also made by hand and can be bought any day at the Pastificio Serenissima on the Salizzada dei Greci. Their weight is measured in grams.
The scene is the riva Ca’ di Dio in front of the Arsenale vaporetto stop.
This week we are in the run-up to the inauguration/starting gun on the Biennale, now back in full force after some Covid side-effects such as lockdown.
Our neighborhood and near environs are absolutely pullulating with people dressed in weird ways, sitting together staring at their phones, drinking lots of spritzes and laughing. If the forecast is fulfilled (never a sure thing), a fierce northeast wind and lashings of rain and low temperatures will put a crimp in the laughing and spritzing on Friday and Sunday, but Saturday, the official opening day, should be sunny and bright. I do hope it works out that way, partly because I never know how far to trust the forecast and it would be interesting to see if they nabbed it this time.
One forecast I can make with total certainty, though, is that there will be inexplicable things strewn around the city that purport to be art. You already know this from past editions. If you think they’re art, they don’t need to be explicated, or you invent your own explication, or you repeat somebody else’s. If you don’t think they’re art, you’re on your own.
Yesterday morning we came upon a piece that, while less off-putting than the phallic column of gold in campo San Vio a few years back, still made Lino and me think assorted non-artistic thoughts.
I add this image in case you’ve forgotten this 2017 contribution to the world of art. I’m glad it’s not up to me to explain it to whoever created the Scythian pectoral.Your eyes don’t lie: It is a cube made of gold.
My thoughts were these: I know it’s a cube. I know it’s made of gold. I know it weighs 130 kilos (286 pounds). I know that it required several rent-a-security-guards. I’m pretty sure I know that the cube-creator (Cubist?) takes his or her work seriously; he’d have to, considering that the current price of 130 kilos of gold is $8,078,590. But I do not know if it is art. And another thing I don’t know — though not knowing will not disturb my sleep — is why?
The Golden Calf meant life and death. The Mask of Agamemnon sends chills down the spine. The Sican beakers at least were useful as well as beautiful. The Panagyurishte Treasure is a cultural symphony.
And what have we to contribute, in the year 2022, to the multi-millennial history of goldsmithing? A cube.
I wish I had grandchildren just so I could tell them I had seen it.
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee….” she may have thought briefly before moving on.Making sure to photograph the cube from its good side.The cube is the only regular hexahedron and is one of the five Platonic solids. It is the only convex polyhedron whose faces are all squares. The cube is also a square parallelepiped, an equilateral cuboid and a right rhombohedron. Might as well learn something while we’re out here standing around. It’s certainly geometry. But is it art?
The Casa de las Carcasas in the Merceria (the name does not refer to carcasses, but to cellphone cases) wants “Peace for Ukraine.” Emotions remain on high simmer around here.
Recently there have been intermittent donation drives here, as in so many places, in aid of Ukrainian refugees. (As of today, nearly 60,000 have arrived; their main destinations are Milan, Rome, Naples, and Bologna.) So far, at least in via Garibaldi, these drives have been organized by Caritas, the charitable wing of the diocese of Venice.
They needed toiletries, toiletries abounded. (Don’t forget children’s toothbrushes.) They needed clothing, we decimated our closet. Boxes have been left, meanwhile, in various churches to encourage the ongoing accumulation of goods.
But this coming Saturday there will be a big new all-day drive, and frankly, I’m kind of intimidated. This is far beyond toothpaste and socks; this effort seems to be gearing up to furnish a hundred M.A.S.H. units.
I translate: “In our churches we are gathering in specific containers the following sanitary materials until Sunday 10 April. PRODUCTS TO MEDICATE WOUNDS: Sterile and non-sterile gauze, surgical drape in microfiber, various bandages (sterile, self-adhesive, iodoformic), bandaids of various sizes, set of reusable plates, materials for sutures, suture removal kit, hemostatics (to stop bleeding), tourniquet, sterile and non-sterile gloves, first-aid kit for treating injuries, scalpel, tweezers and medical scissors, medical equipment (aspirators, oxygen concentrator, PAO gauge, glucose meter with strips), kit for bladder catheterization with disinfectant, or venous catheters, IV tube setup, normal and luer-lock syringes. OTHER MEDICINES: Antibiotics, pain relievers, anti-hemorrhagic medicine, fever reducers, antihistamines. Saturday 9 April there will be a special collection in via Garibaldi all day … thank you.”
I’ve studied Amazon wish lists, I’ve pored over wedding registries, I’ve even looked occasionally at Dear Santa letters, but this cry for help beats them all.
But let us not be daunted! You can get lots of these via amazon.it. Many of them are very cheap. If you should have ever felt any desire to send scalpels or iodoformic bandages or luer-lock syringes to anybody, this is your moment. (I am addressing any local people whose hearts may be moved by this exceptional appeal.)
Otherwise, plain old donations will never go out of style.
You can’t even walk out your front door without stumbling over ways and means to donate to Ukrainian relief. At the checkout counter at the Coop (I admire the logo they came up with), this poster appealing for aid takes front and center. Curious that the big word HELP is in English but I’m not going to stop to quibble. “We have no more words. Only a gesture. Coop help the civil population of Ukraine with a collection of funds to confront the humanitarian emergency. You too can participate with a donation: you can give 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 or 100 euros. #coopforucraina Ask the register operator. Coop favoring UNHCR Sant’ Egidio Doctors without Borders.”This is practically haiku. Here it’s a new little boy, but every baby is a cry for peace.
This fabulous mass of clouds billowed up the other afternoon behind the Arsenal (just to set the general scene). The Arsenal was considered the most secure place in the city for this event, a decision that wouldn’t have much surprised the Venetians of the long-ago Republic. In Venice’s greatest ship-building days the area was surveilled by boats patrolling the perimeter night and day, aided by men watching from 15 guard towers along the walls. They didn’t put up the current signs — “Military Zone, Access Forbidden, Armed Surveillance” — but it was implied.
The G20 are coming for dinner. And breakfast, and fancy fetes, and big meetings from July 7-11, and for days we’ve been given periodic updates on what this will entail for daily life.
For those who may not feel like knowing more than necessary, here are the basics (thank you, Wikipedia): The G20 is composed of most of the world’s largest economies, including both industrialized and developing nations. The group collectively accounts for around 90 percent of gross world product (GWP),[4] 75-80 percent of international trade,[A 1] two-thirds of the world’s population,[2] and roughly half the world’s land area.
Think: Economic Ministers and governors of central banks. Also think: Organized demonstrations protesting the many defects of the global economy, with protestors coming from far and also wide, at least some of whom are known to prefer violence. Each group will be assigned a specific area from which to express their views. They won’t be near the Arsenal, I think I can promise that.
This year it was Italy’s turn to play host, and considering that by the late 13th century Venice was the richest country in Europe, it seems pleasantly appropriate for the money masters to meet here. I doubt that was the organizers’ motivation, but it does fit. Although the decision was made in Rome, and not here, Venice may well have been seen as a city uniquely adapted to the control of movement by land or by water.
The city began planning all this last January (probably much earlier, actually), by means of at least ten separate committees. The basic idea was to keep the city in as normal a condition as possible with the help of 1500 extra police (Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza, Polizia di Stato, etc.), including police divers ready for canal duty. The prefect made a big point of saying he could have just shut the city completely down, but wanted to show it as open and even welcoming. I hope that turns out to be true.
Some statistics: The eleven canals nearest the Arsenal were emptied of the boats that normally are moored there. These 450 vessels were temporarily transferred to the marinas at the Certosa island (“Vento di Venezia”) and Sant’ Elena Marina. I believe there is no cost for this to the owners, but there will certainly be some inconvenience in going to either place to get your boat.
This is what I call extreme house-cleaning — the rio de la Tana completely empty of the boats usually moored there. I don’t know who owns the blue barge, but I bet it’s not going to be there two days from now.
The 62 delegations (size of each unknown) will be lodging in eight luxury hotels in the city. The extra police that have been brought in as reinforcements will be bunking on the mainland, if that interests you.
Covid swabs every 48 hours are guaranteed to everyone at the meeting, at points in the Arsenal and in the delegation hotels. Ambulances are on standby.
The yellow area is the “Security Zone,” accessible only to residents and shopowners who show their pass. At “D” you find the taxi station between San Zaccaria and the Arsenal is suspended, and at E and F the fuel station and boatyard by the church of San Pietro di Castello are suspended, seeing that they are within a few feet of the second water entrance to the Arsenal. No yachts will be permitted to tie up along the Riva degli Schiavoni.
This gate and others like it at any entrance to the Yellow Zone will be closed and overseen by someone in uniform who will check your credentials before letting you enter. All the streets leading into the Arsenal area are now seriously gated. (Gazzettino)The organizers are totally not joking about protecting the Arsenal area. The caption refers to the gates “disciplining foot traffic,” a very polite way of basically saying “Keep Out.”The Francescana rowing club is based inside the Arsenal in a large shed accessible by water and by land. The boats are now all inside the shed and the door locked tight, and the land entrance, as you see, will be blocked as of Sunday night by these supplemental hinged bars.
The vaporetto stops closest to the meeting site (Arsenale, Bacini and Celestia) will be suspended. The Fondamente Nove are partially unavailable to traffic; one helpful notice explained to residents of the Lido that if they needed to go to the hospital, they would have to go to Murano, then proceed to the hospital by way of the Fondamente Nove stop.
Baffled by how this would work, I studied the vaporetto options and discovered Line #18 that runs from the Lido to the Murano stops, where you change for the 4.1. As if normal life here weren’t already sufficiently inconvenient, this line operates once an hour from 9:18 AM to 7:50 PM, with a break between 12:18-4:50 PM. I don’t know that I’d undertake the voyage except in case of direst need.
Navigation will be controlled according to this color-coded scheme, and that means everybody, up to and including you and your aging uncle who wants to take the motorboat out to go fishing.
The green areas are for normal usage at any time; they term it “pleasure” use. “Anyone boating outside Venice must use the green areas. The yellow stretch is for pleasure boating only by residents and only in order to reach a green patch. The rest of the Giudecca Canal (red, though they call it orange) is forbidden to pleasure boats, as is all the rest of the orange zone (Grand Canal from the Bacino of San Marco to the Accademia Bridge. and the Bacino of San Marco to the Canale delle Navi at the end of Sant’ Elena). Navigation of every type of boat, including taxis and barges, is forbidden from 8-10 AM and 4-6 PM; the only exceptions are vaporettos and Alilaguna boats. The blue stretch (they call it purple, but never mind) is forbidden to everybody. This is the Arsenal wall facing the lagoon, so it’s unquestionably a potential hot zone. Work out your own alternatives.
Transport of merchandise will be forbidden between 8:00-10:00 AM and 4:00-6:00 PM. (See the red-orange zone on the map.) Restaurant owners have been advised to stock up early, in case there are any glitches.
Don’t imagine that you can somehow manage to cleverly do things your own way; there will be some 60 boats of the Guardia di Finanza out patrolling, as well as four helicopters. I appreciate the prefect’s assurances that normal life will continue, but I’m starting to wonder how many people are just going to decide to take a long weekend and go to the mountains.
The irrepressible wits at Nevodi Pizzalab are offering three new specials in honor of this important event, as always written in Venetian: Mancava, Anca, and El G20. “We were also missing the G20,” the broader translation being “All we needed, on top of everything else, was the G20.”
