Venice Biennale | Venice: I am not making this up

Tourists take a load off

June 9, 2018 8 Comments

I realize that Venice can be fatiguing — most people aren’t used to walking all day. But the dog has twice as many feet as the man, and it’s still standing.

Sometimes people ask me when the “tourist season” or “high season” begins, and I used to be uncertain. Uncertain no more: It’s Easter. Easter is like the starting bell at Churchill Downs — they just start coming. I can’t explain it, but it has never failed; even if Easter were to fall on February 3, November 5, January 22 — that would be the start of tourist season. But that’s not what’s weighing on me.

What’s weighing on me is how so many of our honored guests have come to behave as if they were in their own backyard, or garage, or abandoned lot behind a shuttered White Tower Hamburgers. Extreme bad manners, of which we’ve already had a few starter episodes, get into the newspaper. For example, the drunken Swiss boys cavorting naked in Campo San Giacometto at the Rialto — profoundly repulsive but not DANGEROUS — or the drunken boys (unspecified nationality) who jumped off the Rialto Bridge one night — HUGELY dangerous.

Or the perhaps not even drunken young men who still were jumping off the bridge by the Danieli hotel in full daylight, blithely unconcerned about barges and taxis and gondolas below. The jumpers could easily be injured when hitting the water or, more precisely, hitting something that’s on the water (recall the drunken New Zealander a few hot summer night years ago who jumped off the Rialto and landed on a passing taxi; after six months of agony, he finally died). Anyone in a boat passing under a bridge has to start thinking they’re in some shooting gallery where, instead of bullets, there are bodies coming for them. The prospect of six months of inescapable and increasingly repellent tomfoolery makes me feel tired and dejected.

We know about these shenanigans because people make videos on their phones and post them on social media. That’s the bass line in this chaotic cantata — showing the imbecility by doing something equally imbecilic. Everyone who reads these reports wonders why people are making videos instead of calling the Carabinieri. If you know the answer to this, please step up to accept your award. Right after you call the Carabinieri. But witnesses to the Danieli escapade say that the police were indeed called, and the police indeed did not appear. So there’s that.

In any case, one doesn’t need dramatic episodes to feel repulsed by tourists, and the daily deterioration doesn’t merit much of a story in the paper. Any neighborhood is bound to offer all sorts of examples of boorish behavior. Among various options, my current obsession is the evidently irresistible urge so many people have to just sit anywhere, plop down on the pavement or bridge, when the mood strikes. I realize this is not unique to Venice, because I’ve seen young people sitting on the floor in the airport, as if there were no seats anywhere. I’m not saying we should bring back the corset and the high starched collar, but the other extreme is worse. Why? For one thing, because they’re in the way and public space is already measured in microns. Second, because it makes otherwise normal people, who almost certainly have had some upbringing, appear to want to revert to life as Homo habilis once they get to Venice.

“Consider yourself at home, consider yourself one of the family” is not a Venetian song.

Tourists waiting for the vaporetto at San Pietro di Castello. It must be terrible to have your strength give out before you can make it the last few steps onto the dock, where there are benches to sit on.

He may be many things, all of them wonderful, but he is not a child. Does he do this where he lives? Or is this some special feature of vacation in a foreign country where nobody knows you?

Maybe the force of gravity is just stronger in Venice, pulling people down against their will. (Gazzettino, uncredited photo)

Tired AND hungry? Just buy a box of take-out pasta (the newest trend) and picnic wherever the spirit moves you. The city is yours! Sit as near a corner as you can manage, so people can risk falling over you!

Takeout food is cheap and filling and maybe even tasty. But while the city is attempting to control the number of places which sell pizza by the slice, kebabs, and boxes of pasta, it has gone inexplicably silent on the question of where the food is to be taken away to. Evidently anywhere is fair game. Take-out places are going to be required to have bathrooms, but not a thought is spared for seating. Which means that in this case I have to sympathize with the feeders. If you give people no option, they’re going to fend for themselves. This is what self-fending looks like. (Gazzettino June 7, 2018 uncredited)

Or why not sit down by a sign that says “Please respect Venice”? Better than sitting on the pavement? Yes, sort of.

Speaking of benches, this one at the San Stae stop was inscribed in marker-pen to indicate the appropriate placement of people according to their category. All the descriptions were sharp and rude, and one was dedicated to tourists.

It says “Reserved for the tourists del cazzo.” This isn’t easy to translate; “cazzo” literally means “penis,” and is often used to modify a word to its trashiest, cheapest, lowest-grade level. Yes, writing this is also trashy and low-grade, but one recognizes the sentiment even against one’s will. The notion that Venetians hate tourists isn’t quite right: They hate anybody who acts like a slob, and many of those come from somewhere else.

So much for the subject of quality (lack of). In my next post, some observations on quantity (surplus of). There will be interesting statistics.

Events

“May” in Venetian is pronounced “Biennale”

May 13, 2017 7 Comments

One feels the imminence of the opening of the annual contemporary art exhibition in the way one feels the approach of a heavily-laden barge on a body of still water. (Hint: A barely perceptible surge of energy which produces only the faintest wave, but you know it’s caused by something very big.)

One of the earliest indications of the oncoming event was this.

For the past 10-14 days the impact zone delimited by via Garibaldi/Giardini/Arsenale has experienced similar increasing energy manifested by more people outside drinking at bars, more people dragging suitcases to hotels and apartments, MANY more people clogging the supermarket aisles, almost all of whom don’t look much like the locals. They are more uptown, more trendy (hair, clothes, makeup, accessories — the full catastrophe, as Zorba said about something else). They walk around looking at each other and at themselves — I don’t know, I can just tell that they’re looking at themselves. The Venetians seem to be invisible to them as they occupy a stage on which the curtain is about to rise. It’s an interesting sensation to be in the same place as someone else and yet not be in the same place at all.

None of these musings is intended to be pejorative. I’m just attempting to convey the altered atmosphere, the shifting of the rpm’s in the old zeitgeist. And why would there not be such alterations? The Biennale (founded in 1895) now runs for seven months of the year, and is worth 30 million euros. The article I read cited that number but didn’t clarify how it breaks down, but as I look around, I’m guessing that at least 28 million euros are spent on vaporetto tickets and taxis. And drinks and ice cream cones. The joint is definitely jumping.

120 artists from 51 countries are featured, including plucky little Kiribati, out in the Pacific Ocean, where each new day officially begins. There are 85 “national participations,” according to the press release, strewn about the city from the national pavilions at the Giardini to 260 other spaces wherever they might be claimed, from non-practicing churches to literal holes in the wall. There are 23 “collateral events,” 5,000 journalists, and a healthy number of luxury yachts ranging from big to astonishingly ginormous. So far, so normal.

What follows are some glimpses from the past few days, bits that show what the arrival of the Biennale looks like. This is not an encyclopedia because life is short and my interest in the subject likewise. I was impelled to put this together merely to give a resident’s-eye view of the proceedings. There will certainly be more jinks of various heights in the next few days (Opening Day is officially Saturday, May 13), but I won’t be trying to keep up with them. I’m covering this entirely by whim. It’s my new operating system.

A bishop and a polar bear in a gondola captioned “I’ve got a sinking feeling.” That makes a sort of sense, I suppose, if you really insist on sense. But where does Bambi come into it?

Then housekeeping began to spiff up some areas which had been crying for spiffage for quite some while. This was an abandoned sea-pine glade till they wanted to make it prettier for the monster metal rhino. Did I not mention him?

Here he is, being assembled, installed, fed, whatever they had to do to get him ready.

This may well be art, but my hat is permanently off to the person(s) who hammered the metal to form this creature. They have to be amazing.

The tail alone is like something out of “Game of Thrones.”

Not far away is this creation. This is not the first large hand rising from the earth (or pavement) that I’ve seen here, though this is more modest. Years ago there was a huge concrete hand about ten feet high that remained reaching upward from the Riva degli Schiavoni for years. I know that our dreams are supposed to exceed our grasp, but this version is more friendly. It’s almost like a wave.

These hands, however, will be crawling out of the water and up the walls of the Hotel Ca’ Sagredo till November. I wonder if the people inside can sense them?

Meanwhile, in the park next door to the rhino, these creations have appeared. As in all of these discoveries, I don’t know who did them, where they come from, what the inner significance is, or what they cost if I want one for my porch or lawn. I’m just showing them as one sees them in a casual stroll on the way to the gelateria. Anyway, I’m fairly sure the explanations would only baffle me.

Not that women in swimwear require any explanation.

Other premonitory signs include these helpful stickers on the ground near the Giardini vaporetto stops. Directional signs are always needed, especially really sophomoric ones.

As expected, the big yachts are parking along the Riva dei Sette Martiri. I have never seen anyone except the crew, but probably the big parties will be this weekend.

I want this one. I want it to take me to Ultima Thule.

The next yacht over has mysteriously (if indeed only crew is aboard) accumulated big sacks of garbage. This is the last of about ten that was dropped into the special barge they engaged to take it away.

Traveling aboard the more mundane vaporetto reveals more art works that continue to rise. At the Accademia Bridge, in the garden by Palazzo Franchetti, a festive reception is underway to celebrate the raising of the bronze dead tree.

I’d like to be able to talk to Titian for a minute. I’d like to hear him say “I always wanted to make something like that, but nobody would let me.”

Here’s what’s intriguing about a man standing alone dripping water from melting ice onto a dead mackerel: There is absolutely nothing — no sign, no acolytes, no flyers — to elucidate what he’s doing. There’s something refreshing about that. I mean, does everything have to have an explanation? Ice. Mackerel. Figure it out for yourself.

Or, an hour or so later, just ice. Is this a statement about glaciers, climate change, the end of the world? Or just the usual metaphor for the brevity/meaning/fragility of life? Perhaps, to paraphrase whoever it was, sometimes a pile of melting ice is just a pile of melting ice. I hope he ate the mackerel.

And speaking of performance art, Tuesday evening we were coming home after 10 PM and came upon a rehearsal for something which was well underway in viale Garibaldi.

It is a group from Korea; the woman in the center is a dancer, the two men holding the illuminated umbrellas are very muscular, and the effigy in the center is a framework supporting priestly or godly garb, but with no one inside. The photographer was shooting the stately advance of the dancer to wafty mystic music coming from somewhere.

A closer look at the effigy and the beef. And the umbrellas, which were screamingly bright. The two men had to remain in this pose even as the dancer moved slowly away; there was a small but persistent chilly breeze blowing, and I began to feel sorry for them. As soon as there was a break, they were bundled up in full-length quilts.

She moved slowly and deliberately to the singing by the woman at the end of the strip of runway, who was producing a sort of eerie throat music.

A story line or narrative did not suggest itself, though her movements were lovely.

I tried to devise a coherent theory of what was transpiring, but what I saw was what you’re seeing. The white veil kind of complicated the situation in my imagination. When she finally reached the hieratic singer, she turned and moved slowly back toward the men and the effigy. This all took about an hour.

Nevertheless, the area has been pullulating with visitors, to the special joy of the local bars and restaurants.

The white marble strip is the normal (and legally certified) limit of the outdoor tables at this bar/noshery. But these days, as long as there’s space, tables are filling it all the way down via Garibaldi.

When it’s closing time at the exhibitions and everyone has drunk and eaten their fill, it’s time to take the vaporetto uptown. As you see by the line, either they or the ACTV were not prepared for this moment. Yes, they are waiting to board the next vaporetto. And the next, and the next…. It’s as crowded as Carnival, only people aren’t laughing.

Dress code: Anything, as long as it’s black. Someone who didn’t know that this is the indisputable color of art-gazers and -discussers might suppose the city was in mourning.

Surveys reveal that black is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force, violence, evil, and elegance. Mainly, it’s the color that everything goes with.

Red! Somebody just made a wild and dramatic bid to be different!

So on the one hand we have these clusters of trendiness (everyone on their cell phones, as always — I couldn’t wait long enough to see if anybody ever talked to anybody who was sitting right there with them) …

…. and on the other hand, the antidote to the glossiness of it all was standing in front of the pastry shop, evidently dressed for Act III of Swan Lake on Mars. I say it every year: the Biennale is more entertaining than Carnival. During Carnival, people dress up and pretend, but at the Giardini in May, people dress up and they aren’t pretending at all.

Venetian Events

The end of art

June 11, 2013 No Comments

This was when it was art. — That was then.

Does everyone remember the gondola loaded with cut-up gondolas that was parked in our canal in the opening fervor of the Biennale?

The opening of the Biennale is, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned, more like starling-swarming or the wildebeest migration than anything else. Dramatic for a short sharp moment, then it’s over and people forget about it.

By now the process is complete. The swarms began to depart the evening of June 2, and although fluttering shreds of tourists remain, the sort who seem to have come actually to look at the art and not each other (shocking, I know), life on the whole is back to its incomprehensible normality.

As everyone knows, the gondola assemblage was art. A week has passed, and this creation has been demoted to Private First Class, downgraded to Economy, put back a grade, however you want to put it.

Having fulfilled its purpose — whatever it was — the object has been removed from its watery pedestal, and taken far away. Not so far in geographic terms, but extremely far in terms of appreciation. You may have heard of “value added”? This is an example of “value subtracted.”

It is now resting quietly in the devastated territory of our rowing club. Evidently the squero here nearby that confected it didn’t want it back soon (or ever); anyway, I was told that in exchange for painting one of our boats, we agreed to let them stash it here.

Sic transit.

Events

Boating Biennale

June 4, 2013 4 Comments

No, this reference isn’t to me or to my (or anybody else’s) oarage, or steerage, or careenage. I am referring to a modest work of Biennale art that I happen to LOVE — just in case anyone thought that I was against everything that had the slightest connection with this event. This little creation makes me smile.

Yes, it's a little boat, 15 feet/5 meters long and made of plastic by Marco Tracanelli, a 577-year-old artist from San Vito al Tagliamento. — Yes, it’s a little boat, 15 feet/5 meters long and made of plastic by Marco Tracanelli, a 57-year-old artist from San Vito al Tagliamento. It bobs around in the waves and is just as jaunty and blithesome as it can be.

Hardly the battleship "Potemkin," even if it does bear the famous name on its hull. — Hardly the battleship “Potemkin,” even if it does bear the famous name on its hull. I don’t know if this reference is intended to carry metric tons of deep significance, but I have to say that somebody who can think up something like this (and make it) can’t be up all night brooding on the unfairness of life, not to mention its deeper profundities. But what do I know.