Art All Around

Monday morning we met up with Jan and Ken to go to the Palazzo Fortuny, the museum dedicated to artist/designer Mariano Fortuny who made the palazzo his home and workshop. It is known for the collection of the artists paintings, photography, studies on light, fabrics and stage designs. There is also a special exhibit currently there on the Golden Ratio, the mathematics behind proportion. As we soon found out, the majority of the Fortuny collection had been temporarily moved out to make room for this exhibit.   No matter, this was a really interesting exploration of proportion through a vast array of media–classical sculpture, renaissance painting, contemporary sculpture, textiles, video and photography, architecture.

One of my unexpected favorites was tucked away in a tiny room at the back of the first floor, a hauntingly beautiful video called Night Time by Hans  Op de Beeck.  I found a little slice of it on YouTube. Night Time

There was a little corner of Fortuny on the first floor. I guess we’ll have to come back to Venice, right?

I had told Jan I wanted to do some simple jewelry shopping, so after hitting up a bakery for some bread and cookies, we walked to a shop she likes in San Polo. And surprise–it was the same shop where I had bought my favorite earrings 12 years ago! I bought a necklace to go with those silvery-grey earrings. We parted from Jan and Ken, and Larry and I wandered around in search of some lunch. We wound up at Ai Do Farai, a cute place with a few tables filled by old Italian guys. We figured why not, they looked happy. The charmingly wacky owner set us up with a mixed seafood antipasto, filled with Venetian low tide goodies. Four different kinds of shrimp, seppie, pulpo, sarde in saor, mantecato, cozze, polenta. All simply dressed with oil, salt, and the occasional drip of lemon.Very nice. We then shared spaghetti with clams and mussels, a tiny bit oversalted to my taste, but still quite good. We enjoyed listening to the political chatter and Dino the owner pulling out a chair to chat with everyone, including us.

In walking around, I stopped by an old building with different grates in each window, very cool.

And across the calle, this contemporary one of a dove.

Went home to rest up a bit, and in the late afternoon went to Tronchetto to see where we’ll be getting the bus on Friday. No ticket office there, so perhaps the perpetually closed one in Piazza Roma actually has some open hours we’ve missed. Continued on the vap to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.

There we visited the new gallery of contemporary glass, currently running a show on Finnish glass. This piece really caught me, with all the layers in a simple form.

Outside is the Mondrian Glass Tea House.

By now the rain had started, so we continued walking along the island, ducking into the several Biennale exhibits open. Some things that didn;t really speak to me, but I did enjoy this huge room of textured figures called “crowd.” As you first approach, all the figures look the same, but as you walk through them you can find the differences in feature and posture that make them individuals.

Also loved these enormous sculptures of girl’s faces.

Inside the church of San Giorgio Maggiore were two more sculptures, one of a peacefully featured head and the other of a hand in benediction.

We took the elevator up the belltower, into an extremely dramatic and windy sky, complete with rainbows. I had some trouble with my pleated silk skirt, which desperately wanted to billow up to my shoulders. I now know why they make parachutes from thin silk. Breathtaking views made it more than worthwhile.

 

  

And for those who complain that I’m never in my own blog–doesn’t my hair look pretty in the wind?

Took the vap over to Guidecca, and sat for some spritzes across from San Marco.

By now we were hungry, so went to Pizzeria Ae Oche on the Zaterre. Too wet to sit outside, so we enjoyed pizzas inside along with tables of students. Good stuff.

Home to bed.