Sunday morning we took a slow walk over to one of the Biennale collateral exhibits in Canaregio. It was called Man as Bird–Images of Journeys, a collection of work from artists from around the world. It was in the Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel, a gorgeous late Gothic building built in 1473, privately owned. One of the fun things about Biennale is visiting these collateral exhibits, which are often housed in palazzos otherwise not available to the unwashed masses like us.
On the first floor the works explore water and nature. I enjoyed Leonid Tishkov’s beautiful painted photograph series Private Moon, each showing him with a glowing crescent moon in different environments, perspectives, and angles.
The second floor had some truly strange things, chief among them a harrowing video piece centered on a young girl trying to cope with being in a constantly changing, anxiety-producing landscape. And another of a little house made of lights, with a chair and tv screen inside. Oh, let’s not forget the video of a tank of fish, slowly emptying so that you watch the poor fish flop around in desperation, till it tilts up and fills again. But we did love a room of hammered bronze pieces that you bang with mallets to create sound that is amplified back, creating new harmonies as people tap.
We made our way back home, and had a lunch of leftovers. We were supposed to join Shannon and her guests for a tour of the Clock Tower in San Marco, obviously my knee wasn’t up for it so Larry went while I stayed home. Unfortunately the clock wasn’t working that day, but Larry enjoyed seeing the mechanics and workings anyway, and the view was great. I’ll get up the 130 steps another time.
For dinner, we joined Shannon and her guests at Ai Promessi Sposi. An excellent meal. We all shared tuna tartare, sweet little scallops, and buratta. We went on to nice mixed salads, and then I had one of my favorite things in Venice, Fegato (liver, OK, go make gagging noises, but this isn’t your mother’s liver); while Larry finally got his frito misto. We shared a light semifredo for dessert. A nice time.
Destination Anywhere 