Another year, another Biennale

Vaporettos make wonderful billboards; I don't know if they auction off the space on their vehicles to the highest bidder, but it wouldn't surprise me. I mean, why Azerbaijan on the #1, and not Kenya?
Vaporettos make wonderful billboards; I don’t know if they auction off the space on their vehicles to the highest bidder, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I mean, why Azerbaijan on the #1, and not Tuvalu?

Despite the fact that “Biennale” literally means bi-annual (that is, every two years), this extravaganza of art has been broken up into so many different pieces — architecture, dance, music, etc. — that it has become, in some form or other, an annual event.  Which means that at the beginning of June every year we live a week or so of intense spectatorhood at the swarming of the international art-scenesters.

For the brief period leading up to the inauguration (June 1 this year), we are entertained by an extraordinary spectacle of  garb and behavior — I don’t mean this as a compliment — and the neighborhood businesses, especially bars and restaurants, get to earn some real money.  If the visitors were the proverbial hay, the Biennale would be the proverbial sun, and the local merchants would be scything around the clock.

Short as this interlude may be, it causes all sorts of disorderly thoughts to rush into my brain — thoughts about art, thoughts about what it’s for and how it works, why or whether it matters, and thoughts about people (those are usually nasty, brutish and short — the thoughts, I mean, not the people).

I spent most of yesterday attempting to write them down and organize them so I could share their brilliance with you.  But I gave up.  Based on the art we see outside here, and the people who pursue it, art has become something so silly that to treat it as something serious has become an art form in itself.

The neighborhood is pulsating with journalists, art-watchers, art-commenters, and art-participaters.  And I suppose also some lower-voltage art-perpetrators too, but I doubt that they are wandering around via Garibaldi, or blocking the streets drinking their spritzes where the space is narrowest (“You need to get through here? How quaint”), or leaning against things talking into their phones, drawing attention to themselves. My experience is that real artists rarely look all that  important.  Irving Penn looked like a vinyl-siding salesman.

Right on time, the gigantic luxury yachts have moved in for the big parties over the weekend. All 19 berths have been taken.
Right on time, the gigantic luxury yachts have moved in for the big parties over the weekend. All 19 berths have been taken.
These yachts are here for the big parties.  They'll be gone soon.  They'll be back for the Film Festival and more parties.
These yachts redefine the term “party boat.”  They’ll be gone soon. They’ll be back for the Film Festival and more parties.
I love to look at them in the morning when nobody's around.  They're like Gloria Swanson.
I love to look at them in the morning when nobody’s around. They’re like Gloria Swanson just getting out of bed.

Every year there is one major work of art that takes center stage, or tries to.  They are always put out along the fondamente, obviously, where they can’t not be seen.

The first year I was here, it was a monstrous concrete hand, half-emerging from the pavement, fingers reaching upward in what might have been a metaphoric expression of yearning — or pleading, or grasping — for freedom. Another year it was a five-story-high sort of stele, glowing night and day with a violently-blue neon sort of waterfall.  That blighted the landscape for quite a while. Then there was the decrepit traditional wooden sailing boat from the Comoro Islands, encumbered with two ponderous dumpsters, that floated for months tied to some pilings as it slowly came apart.  Oh — and there was the tree, planted on a specially-constructed platform, in front of the Giardini where there are masses of trees.

The tree started out green in June, 2008, but by October it looked like this. That undoubtedly was part of the entire artistic concept. If I'd ever thought dead plants could make me famous, I'd have saved all those doomed geraniums.
The tree started out green in June, 2008, but by October it looked like this. That might have been the entire artistic concept. If I’d ever thought dead plants were art, I’d have saved all those doomed geraniums.

This year it is a gigantic figure on the island of San Giorgio sometimes known as “Alison Lapper Pregnant,” but at the moment called “Respiro” (“breath”). It is a portrait of English artist Alison Lapper, who was born as shown here (except obviously not 11 meters/33 feet high, purple, and inflatable). Don’t try to understand this by yourself; only Marc Quinn, the artist, and his assorted interpreters can tell you what it really means.

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It’s actually very simple. I translate from a photo caption in Panorama.it: This handiwork “proposes a new model of feminine heroism in which love, maternity and vitality reach an unpredictable form and an unexpected peak.” It also is part of a “voyage from the origins of life” and “celebrates fear and wonder in the face of the world in which we live.”  Other resonant phrases such as “the beauty and mystery of creation and life” defeat my capacity to link language to thought.

In case you might suppose that this artifact were some self-indulgent creation meant only to stupefy the Biennalists, or that the Palladian monument of the church of San Giorgio might be an inappropriate location for showing it (Peasant!), you should know that it has been exhibited at all sorts of places.  It’s been in London since 2005 and was understandably given pride of place at the Special Olympics in London in 2012; other sites range from places associated with some sort of violence, such as a military training field in Tripoli, Libya; in Paris (protests against gay marriage); in Srinagar (protests in Kashmir); in Moore, Oklahoma (tornado tragedy), to more frivolous events which needed to draw more than usual attention to themselves, such as the competition in Berlin of  “German models of the future,” to the beach at Long Branch, New Jersey, to Indianapolis, Indiana. She’s traveled more than I have.

With the deepest respect to the subject of this creation (I can’t call it a statue, but I can’t call it a balloon, either), the thoughts it inspires are not related to life, beauty, mystery, fear or wonder. Because I already know what it is. Like everything else on earth, it is a business.  Or rather, part of a business. Mining mercury, molding ocarinas, feeding orphans, shoeing horses — all businesses.

Business is one of the fundamental building blocks of life, right in there with carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. And here at the Biennale we see the business of art, which — say what you will — has very little to do with life, beauty, mystery, or wonder, though maybe fear could be seen as playing a part.

Back to Alison Lapper as depicted by her plastic portraitist. I’m all for symbolism, but I am repelled by fabricated symbolism that is tacked onto an invention which is essentially  intended to promote the inventor. Artists promote themselves because they want to sell you their stuff. Although Ms. Lapper collaborated in this work for her own reasons, she is merely the vehicle by which Marc Quinn intends to make you notice him. If all he wanted to do was show the beauty and wonder of life, he wouldn’t have put his name on it.

I’m not going to say any more, because this is the point at which my thoughts diverge from my ability to express them.

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According to the Gazzettino, the director of the diocesan office of culture, don Gianmatteo Caputo, is not happy. For one thing, the Cini Foundation didn’t specify that the object wouldn’t be the original statue of marble, but this inflatable version (I guess that matters); for another, he denied the Foundation permission to place it in front of the church (I pause to let the idea settle that such permission was requested), so it was put BESIDE the church. That makes everything all right.

 

Then I discovered she was inflated.  I don't know what this operation was intended to accomplish, but they got her blown up again.

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I felt disturbed when I thought she was made of stone. It was worse when I saw her like this. But she was evidently undergoing some repairs, because she was back up in almost no time.
Large boulders (not genuine granite) have appeared around the neighborhood. The owner of this newsstand said such objects lined the entrance to the United States pavilion.
Large boulders (not genuine granite) have appeared around the neighborhood. The owner of this newsstand said such objects line the entrance to the United States pavilion. Maybe they had extras.  Anyway, if you have to ask, I’d say that this little divertimento isn’t very effective as publicity. But wait!  If you have to ask, you’ve just demonstrated that you don’t know anything about art! Peasant!
The newsstand at the Giardini was similarly bouldered.
The newsstand at the Giardini was similarly bouldered.  Art is in the air…..
As was Massimo and Luca's vegetable boat.  Perhaps there's a good crop of boulders coming in this year.
As was Massimo and Luca’s vegetable boat. Perhaps there’s a good crop of boulders coming in this year.
Yesterday evening we saw this unusual creation being rowed somewhat tentatively toward via Garibaldi.  The hesitation wasn't only  because the man rowing wasn't too good at it, but because the bridge he was about to pass under was too low.
Yesterday evening we saw this unusual creation being rowed somewhat tentatively toward via Garibaldi. The hesitation wasn’t only because the man rowing wasn’t too good at it, but because the bridge he was about to pass under was too low.
this is a test
The problem is the ferro of the gondola sticking up in the middle of the boat: It’s too high to pass under the bridge.
The problem is the ferro of the gondola sticking up in the middle of the boat. Suggestion: wait till the tide goes out a little more (the Venetian equivalent of letting some air out of the tires). A better suggestion: Dragoon a real gondolier just walking by to come row it the right way: All the weight over on the right side, making the boat tilt just enough to pass under with no problem.  As long as nobody breathes.
Hold everything. One suggestion: Wait till the tide goes out a little more (the Venetian equivalent of letting some air out of the tires).

 

A better suggestion: Dragoon a real gondolier who's just walking by to row it the right way: All the weight over on the right side, making the boat tilt just enough to pass under with no problem. As long as nobody breathes.
A better suggestion: Dragoon a real gondolier who’s just walking by to row it the right way.  Welcome aboard, sir.
All the weight over on the right side, making the boat tilt just enough to pass under with no problem. As long as nobody breathes.
All the weight over on the right side, making the boat tilt just enough to slip beneath the bridge with no problem without capsizing.  Pretty simple, as long as nobody breathes.
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Gondoliers do this all the time when the water’s a little high. The only reason you see the stern of a gondola sliced off is because the gondolier’s lazy. Or not very good.
There was great applause from all the people who had stopped to watch. In my opinion, the gondolier was more of an artist than the person who put all the cut-up boat parts into the gondola.
There was great applause from all the people who had stopped to watch. In my opinion, the gondolier was more of an artist than the person who put all the cut-up boat parts into the gondola.
The boat was tied up just beyond the second bridge, under the banner announcing whatever exhibition it was part of "Gondola."  I'm guessing the boat is the work of art, but in that case I'd have to give credit to the people in the squero who did the cutting and pasting, not the dude who thought it up. But what do I know about art.
The boat didn’t have far to go; it was tied up just beyond the second bridge, under the banner announcing “Gondola.” I’m guessing the boat is the work of art, but in that case I’d have to give credit to the people in the squero who did the cutting and pasting, not the dude who thought it up. But what do I know about art.

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I will help you understand what this boat full of what looks like mussel-shells actually means: Study the explanation given here, take two aspirin, or a large grappa, or stick your finger in a live socket, and call me in the morning.  It’s all art.  All of it.  Everything.  Even your dirty-laundry basket and your old broken bike.  You’re wasting your time doing whatever you do — you could be here in Venice, making people admire you.

Speaking of which, there is a wonderful scene in an extremely wonderful movie called “Le Vacanze Intelligenti” (The Intelligent Vacation) with Alberto Sordi.  He and his wife are a late-middle-aged couple, fruit-and-vegetable sellers in Rome, whose highly educated children organize their summer holiday for them. No going to the beach this year — the parents are going to learn something! So the itinerary sends them to tour Etruscan tombs, and go to avant-garde concerts in Florence, and they finally end up in Venice, at the Biennale.

It’s summer, it’s sweltering, they’re exhausted, and while he goes off in search of a cold drink for her, she slumps, comatose, eyes shut, into the only available chair, under a tree. And people stop to admire her, and talk about what the artist had in mind, and how skillful he was, and how much she might cost if somebody wanted to buy her.  The moment she comes to and realizes she’s been seriously mistaken for art is something sublime.

 

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Shine and shadow

It started out like this, with me admiring my fantastic R. Crumb legs. Then I began to notice lots of other people had them too.

Yesterday was the first day of spring (“Hold the One-Star!” an old newspaper friend of mine would yell here).  But the weather yesterday didn’t seem very convinced.

Today, though, we had all the early warning signs of spring: clear skies, fresh breeze, warm sun, everything within sight looking as if it were taking a figurative luxurious deep breath and throwing open its windows. On a less poetic, but no less significant level, every woman in the neighborhood appeared to have washed every item of clothing in the house, down to the dog socks, because then she could hang it all out and literally watch it dry.

You all know my fixation on laundry.  Maybe March 22 should be called the First Day of Laundry. Or better yet, we’ll reassign the feast day of St. Hunna of Alsace (“The Holy Washerwoman”) from April 15 to March 22.  Just a thought.

But I had a feast day of sun and shadows, myself. This afternoon I had to walk to the end of via Garibaldi to pick up a shirt from Rosie, the young Moldovan seamstress with fingers of gold, who had finished turning its collar.  I was happy to have the shirt, along with its additional two years of useful life, but I was even happier to see the sun going down. Because at 5:00 PM or so it had reached the perfect level to create a wilderness of shadows along the broad strip of pavement.

People, dogs, children, assorted objects from pigeons to dog poop, each came attached to its own dark silhouette clinging to whatever point was touching the ground.  Roller skates, sneakers, skateboards, paws, flagpoles, old ladies, shopping bags, toddlers — everything had its own personal doppelganger.

Watching all this as I walked home was hugely entertaining.  Some people were pulling their shadows along behind them, others were pushing them in front, but whether the shadows were being made to frolic or to stand stock still, or walk smartly along or  stretch out into long exaggerated strips of black, or go all shapeless and run into other nearby shadows and disappear, they were all over the place.

Some people look at the sun; I was looking at where the sun was not.

Pigeons join the shadowfest.
Then things began to get a little cluttered. I was good with the dogshadow, then I began to notice that the chairs, the tables, the sandwich-board, were all throwing their shadows into the crowd. It was starting to look like there were even shadows without objects attached to them. I wouldn’t put it past them.
Before long, via Garibaldi had more shadows than things. I don’t understand how that works.
Bringing it back to the basics: Two men with the Modigliani approach to their shadows.
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Light and shadow

There is no earthly reason to show these photos, except that they are glimpses of what I’ve been seeing lately on the old via Garibaldi. Winter is a very, very good time for slicing bits of beauty out of the city.  Don’t worry, they grow right back.

I have lots more (and many show the eastward view, too — it’s not always sunset in ErlaWorld). But no time to start looking for them at the moment. 

Shadows are probably one of the most un-mysterious things around, but I still think they’re full of magic.
Sunset at this time of the year aims the sun’s rays with a precision and intensity that are highly gratifying. As a bonus, this is the angle at which the church of the Salute looks as if it’s sitting right at the end of the street; a few steps further, and it suddenly falls back into its correct distant position. I can amuse myself indefinitely with this optical illusion.
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Christmas spirit

This splendid relief carving surmounts the main entrance to the church of San Giuseppe (Saint Joseph) in Castello. There are two especially good things here: First, Saint Joseph is, as always, in the background -- even on a church dedicated to him. He must have been a remarkable person. Second, the three shepherds are as accurate as artist Giulio dal Moro (early 1500's) could make them. The first one, kneeling, not only has a small barrel attached to his belt (brandy?), but his upraised right hand is holding sheep-shears.

Venice at Christmas — it sounds as if the entire city ought to be refulgent with gleaming and sparkling, as if every fragment of its shattered splendor should come together and shine in an unearthly and glorious way.

Yes, it does seem that it ought to be that way.

Instead, scattered efforts at decoration all around the city make bright flickers, some bigger, some smaller, that don’t come together in any coherent way. Venice is littered with Nativity scenes, in paintings, in sculpture, not to mention other aspects of the Christmas story — the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, and even the Massacre of the Innocents –yet the general attitude toward Christmas is not excessively devout.  It remains essentially a domestic holiday and I suppose that ought to translate, if depicted accurately today, into scenes of Mary in the kitchen wrestling with something heavy in the oven while Baby Jesus is busy trying to teach the cat how to swim, or of them looking desperately, not for a room at the inn, but for a place to park at the mall. Meaning no disrespect.

Punctually on December 1, the Christmas mailbox gets installed outside the tobacco/lottery/toy shop.

Little old people, as everywhere, are being wrangled into some extended-family configuration; and the children are, I think, essentially like children everywhere — eyes and spirits fixed, not on the Star, but on the imminent deluge of presents. And not brought by kings or wise men, but laid on by squadrons of adoring relatives, even in times like these.

Perhaps there are gala balls being held in palaces, but my sense is that anybody with a palace is probably already at Cortina.

Still, the framework remains the same, at least in our little hovel: Christmas Eve means risotto of go’ and roasted eel, the ripping open of the presents, midnight mass, the singing of “You Descend from Heaven,”  and slicing the panettone at midnight and popping the prosecco.

Christmas Day means the big mass at San Marco, some fabulous meaty lunch, then either sleeping on the sofa or visiting relatives, then more eating, and more sleeping.

The day after Christmas — the feast of Santo Stefano — is another holiday.  More gorging on food, this time with all of Lino’s family.

One quaint aspect of this holiday is that there are no newspapers for two days because the journalists and editors and printers don’t work  on Christmas Eve and Christmas. This is an antiquated practice that is even more exotic than bearing in the boar’s-head and drinking wassail.  Newspapers in the rest of the world come out as usual, but here, for some reason (and I do not believe it’s because the entire category wants to spend two whole days in church) the newspaper-producers just don’t work on Christmas.

To which I say: Who notices or cares?  The broadcast journalists are working as usual, and the news continues to flow to us in an unbroken stream via the television and the Internet.  But somehow print journalists feel themselves to be special, which, I presume, is fostered and sustained by the unions.  And then they complain that readership is falling.

But this is normal.

This homemade Nativity scene was created by the family on Sant' Erasmo where we go to buy our vegetables. Who says there were no apples and squash in the stable?

What is going to be abnormal this year for the holidays is: Minimal garbage collection.  Of any sort, whether recyclable (there’s a weekly schedule for the different types of material) or otherwise (clam shells, coffee grounds, orange peels, fishbones, half-eaten cupcakes, wine bottles, etc.).  And this will last for two days: Christmas Day, and Santo Stefano.

Two days with no garbage collection — this is a startling innovation in the festal folkways, especially in a city which purports to be world-class, or somewhere near it, and during a period which could be described as garbage-intensive.

The Gazzettino conveys the explanation given by the garbage company, which is nothing more than an arm of the city government with a different name: The garbage collectors are all going to be too busy keeping the streets clean to have time also to collect the bags which are daily left outside the doors of houses and shops.

The very best part is that, given this fact, the garbage company respectfully requests the good citizens to refrain from putting their bags of refuse outside for two days.  So the streets can be neat and tidy. And the interiors of the houses and stores can become kitchen middens.

This is only moderately annoying to us, but for families with children, it’s inconceivable.  I can tell you right now, sitting here with my eyes closed, that the streets are going to be FULL of bags of garbage.  Or maybe there will be a mass reversion to the Old Way, which involves a big splash.

To review: We are requested to not clutter the streets because the trash-teams are going to be busy keeping the streets clean.  But if we’re not putting out trash, why do the streets need to be cleaned? It’s like the definition of chutzpah: First you kill your parents, then you plead for clemency from the court because you’re an orphan.

I tell you, sometimes life in the most beautiful in the world makes my head hurt.

But let us return to the reason for the season, as they say.  Here is a small assortment of glimpses of Venice preparing for Christmas.  But of course, the most beautiful scenes of all are arranged and decorated and illuminated where you’ll never see them: In each person’s heart.  Compared to which glass angels and marzipan cake and all the strings of lights ever plugged in are as nothing.

Out on the eastern edge of Venice, the furthest bit of inhabited land, someone has chosen to put up a lighted little sleigh with one reindeer.
I'm still mystified by whatever is hanging on the fence below the sleigh, but it does seem merry and bright. Could it be an illuminated poinsettia?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boathouse of the Generali insurance company's rowing club always has a Nativity scene of some sort. This year they made it float on the canal -- beautiful and evocative, though the waves from the endlessly passing motorboats during the day make it toss like a ship in a storm.
An enterprising bakery and pastry shop hollowed out a chocolate panettone and put in little figurines of Mary, Joseph and Jesus made of marzipan.
They also added a small light to represent the star. But if marzipan can be made to resemble real fruit and fish and so on, why did they make the Holy Family look as if it were carved out of soap? Lino says they already did plenty to make it look like this, and I should just zip it.

 

One of the innumerable variations on the Christmas cake. However they decorate it, the sentiment is always happily the same.
The Nativity scene in a hut in via Garibaldi has all the necessary components, down to the empty manger. In a startling flash of logic, the Baby Jesus isn't installed until Christmas Day.

 

The glow of Christmas on via Garibaldi, silently and majestically and completely upstaged by the moon. And to all a good night.

 

 

 

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