Venice Day 2

 Hi,

For our first day of seeing art, we covered a few of the shows outside of the Giardini and the Arsenale where the Biennale takes place. We saw a show by Marlene Dumas, and Joseph Beuys, and a show at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum of Surrealism and Magic. I should start out by saying that the title of this year's Biennale is The Milk of Dreams. I am going to reprint the explanation on the Biennale website:

“The Milk of Dreams takes its title from a book by Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) – Cecilia Alemani stated – in which the Surrealist artist describes a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination. It is a world where everyone can change, be transformed, become something or someone else. The Exhibition The Milk of Dreams takes Leonora Carrington’s otherworldly creatures, along with other figures of transformation, as companions on an imaginary journey through the metamorphoses of bodies and definitions of the human.

This Exhibition is grounded in many conversations with artists held in the last few years. The questions that kept emerging from these dialogues seem to capture this moment in history when the very survival of the species is threatened, but also to sum up many other inquiries that pervade the sciences, arts, and myths of our time. How is the definition of the human changing? What constitutes life, and what differentiates plant and animal, human and non-human? What are our responsibilities towards the planet, other people, and other life forms? And what would life look like without us.

These are some of the guiding questions for this edition of the Biennale Arte, which focuses on three thematic areas in particular: the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses; the relationship between individuals and technologies; the connection between bodies and the Earth.”

So not only the curated show but all the shows we saw today which were not in the official show had touches of things that brought them into line with these ideas. And of course, most of the artists were women.

We left the hotel around 11.

Our hotel shuttle /water taxi took us to St Marks's Square.

  

We started our walk through the crowds of people in the square to Palazzo Grassi near the Academia Bridge. It was a twisting winding route through the alleys and over the bridges. We went past this door handle which I found quite amusing.

And this design shop.

The first stop was the Palazzo Grassi where we saw a fantastic Marlene Dumas show. I didn't really know much about her but she is a South Africaner who has lived in many places but now she lives near Amsterdam. She mainly paints people. This was a huge retrospective so at first there is a lot of sexual content and then the work moves into more of a study of faces and full figures. There is an eerie almost spirit-like quality to them.

I found this to be very compelling...

This was called The Painter and she used a photo of her daughter as the model. She painted her daughter in a variety of ways throughout the show.

I just loved this little mouse.

Famous men mostly homosexuals who contributed to society - these are just four out of 10 or more.

  

I was intrigued by the phantom.

This was a huge show and extremely compelling. I will look her up and try to learn more about her now.

We had lunch at a lovely place by the water.

Next up was a small show by Joseph Beuys.

Then we walked over to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum to see two different shows related to Surrealism and Magic. One was made up of work from her collection which was fabulous and then another that was also really fantastic. Can you tell I am a fan of Surrealism and Magic? A lot of Max Ernst, Calder, Dali, etc.

Couldn't resist throwing these in - Calder and Tanguy.

Calder bed headboard. 

Those were examples of some of the things in her collection and now on to the other show starting with a truly bizarre piece.

Sorry, I don't have labels to attach to these but you will recognize some of them anyway. I thought the fist was particularly wonderful and weird.

So that was what we saw the first day and then we caught the water taxi/hotel shuttle back to the hotel in time for dinner at the Cip. It is the casual dining restaurant at the Cipriani but we felt it might be more formal than we bargained for but despite that, we ate dinner there anyway.

The end. 

Hugs to you all,

Susan