Few Tourists and Lots of Art - Venice is Joyful in January

Agostino Nani Mocenigo - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) Venice is joyful in January, when locals mostly have the city to ourselves. Many shops are closed for winter vacations and renovations. The air is brisk and cold. You can see the snow-capped Alps hovering surrealistically in the background. The torrent of tourists has dwindled to a manageable flow, and the vaporetti dawdle on the Grand Canal. It is a brief pause to catch one's breath before Carnival arrives on February 16, and the hordes descend upon the city once again. It's time to relax and enjoy some art.

Agostino Nani Mocenigo at Galleria ItinerArte - Photo: Cat Bauer

Agostino Nani Mocenigo

Count Agostino Nani Mocenigo was a nobleman from one of Venice's most distinguished families who stunned the city when he chose to end his own life in February 2017. I had the privilege of dining with him on more than one occasion, and found him to be sweet, kind, witty and compassionate with that wry Venetian sense of humor.

Agostino was also a Rousseau-like artist whose work captured his fanciful soul in the images of a Venice he painted that existed only in his vivid imagination. A couple weeks ago, Galleria ItinerArte in Dorsoduro inaugurated a posthumous exhibition of Agostino's work, which turned into a warm celebration of his life with lots of friends dropping by, delighted by his whimsical paintings -- an altana (wooden roof-top terrace) dangled from a girder; a palace floated over a canal; a colorful serpent peeked through the greenery from its own little island. As the Prosecco flowed, you could almost feel Count Agostino Nani Mocenigo smiling from the heavens...

Lovers of the City by Svyatoslay Ryabkin

Dream and Reality

Meanwhile, over at Hotel Danieli, the playful imagination of another artist is on display. The Ukrainian painter, Svyatoslav Ryabkin, has brought his fantasies of love and flight to Venice in the exhibition Dream and Reality. On show are five works in the majestic Salone Dandolo. I especially liked his "Lovers of the City," which had a sweet little caption:

Those in love are always in flight. In their poor home they have a paradise and the tractor for them is the best car. It is an idyllic image.

You can enjoy the Dream and Reality exhibition through March 6 in the Bar Dandolo Lounge.

Fire - Marco Martalar at Palazzo Ferro Fini - Photo: Cat Bauer

4444 Water and Fire

4444 Acqua e Fuoco is a project by two different sculptors from the Veneto region who work with wood, exhibited in two different venues here in Venice, Palazzo Ferro Fini and Ca' Rezzonico.

Marco Martalar is from the Altopiano dei Sette Comuni, seven comuni in the Veneto that formed a Chimbrian enclave, which was ethnically and culturally diverse from the surrounding comuni. Martalar belongs to the ancient Cimbri people, who speak a dialect of Upper German. He is inspired by the myths and legends of the forests, and gives fire to his artworks, almost as if through a pagan rite they can acquire new vitality.

Water - Toni Venzo at Palazzo Ferro Fini - Photo: Cat Bauer

Toni Venzo lives nears the river Brenta that flows through a deep valley surrounded by mountains and woods until it reaches the sea on the Venetian coast. Venzo is inspired by water. The harmonious and slow current is reflected in the fluid lines of his artwork.

4444 Water & Fire at Ca' Rezzonico - Photo: Cat Bauer

The "4444" in the exhibition title refers to the number of steps of the Calà del Sasso, the longest staircase in Italy, which has linked the two territories since ancient times. At seven kilometers (4.35 miles) long, it is the world's longest staircase open to the public. The path leads down from the village of Sasso di Asiago towards the town of Valstagna, a province of Vicenza. Next to the staircase runs a gully, which was used to transport timber downhill from Sasso during the Venetian Republic. Once in Valstagna, Calà del Sasso ends near the river Brenta, where the logs were floated to Venice, and used in the arsenal for the construction of ships.

So, 4444 Water and Fire not only links the Veneto to Venice, it links ancient history to contemporary times. And it also links the Comune of Venice to the Veneto Region by displaying one set of artworks at Palazzo Ferro Fini, the seat of the Regional Council, and another at Ca' Rezzonico, part of Venice's Civic Museums.

You can visit both sections of 4444 Acqua e Fuoco through April 1. And if you can read Italian, you can go to Ca' Rezzonico for more information. Otherwise, if you are one of the lucky few visitors here in Venice in this period of calm (or you are a local and are just curious) wander over to Palazzo Ferro Fini and Ca' Rezzonico and take the opportunity to visit a couple of venues you may not have seen before.

Karole Vail, Director of Peggy Guggenheim Collection - Photo: Cat Bauer

From Gesture to Form

Karole Vail, director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, gave a superb presentation of what 2019 has in store at the breakfast conference on January 25, kicking off the new season with pizzazz. Right now you can visit From Gesture to Form: Postwar European and American Art from the Schulhof Collection, curated by Gražina Subelytė and Karole P. B. Vail. 

The exhibition is a chance to view nearly the entire Schulhof Collection, which was bequeathed to the Guggenheim in 2012, and provides insights into the art movements that developed from around the end of World War II through the 1980s.  

From Gesture to Form - Photo: Cat Bauer

Living artists from both sides of the Atlantic were the focus of the Schulhofs, so artists such as Willem de Kooning, Lucio Fontana, Hans Hofmann, Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, Robert Ryman, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol and many others are represented. 

Karole Vail also said that since she is a curator at heart, she rearranged the main house a bit:-)

You can visit From Gesture to Form through March 18, 2019. Go to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection for more information.

Soccol - Photo: Cat Bauer

Giovanni Soccol

Venetian artist Giovanni Soccol is at Ca' Pesaro with an exhibition with the weighty title of Soccol - The Metamorphosis of Reality into Myth, or of the Melancholy of the Contemporary Man. Gabriella Belli, who curates the exhibit together with Elisabetta Barisoni, writes in the catalogue:

"Reviewing Giovanni Soccol's entire production as if it were a film editing..., I find that the signs of contemporary melancholy that I saw in 1995 are unaltered over the course of years -- the romantic sense of stupor and at the same time the fight of man who is watching the world, whether it be the ship's prow that becomes an island, a Cyclopean labyrinth, the inside of a basilica, a water door on the lagoon or a horizon of eclipses, choppy seas of the presence-absence of light and darkness. These are the traits of an infinite metamorphosis of reality into myth which is renewed in every Giovanni Soccol painting, conceding us a magic suspension in art territory and in eternity's spaces."

Soccol runs through April 22, 2019. Go to Ca' Pesaro for more information if you can read Italian.

That is just a handful of treasures that Venice has to offer at this tranquil time of year. But one of my favorite things to do is to stroll into a caffè and have a rich, thick cup of hot chocolate. Yum!

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

Vocal Skyline Rocks the Frari on Epiphany - Venice, Italy

Vocal Skyline rocks the Frari - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) Vocal Skyline, the Venetian choral group, rocked the Frari on Epiphany, kicking off the New Year with a seismic shift. It was the most astonishing concert I have ever seen in a church on a sacred holiday, with tunes by Michael Jackson, Abba, Queen, Cold Play -- even "Mad World" by Gary Jules -- mixed in with more traditional fare, all somehow fitting profoundly into the theme of the Epiphany, updated for contemporary ears. Thanks to the creative team of  Cristina Pustetto, Marco Toso Borella and Giacomo Franzoso, the sold-out audience was brought to its feet.

It took over a century to build the immense Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, which  was consecrated in 1492 -- back when Christopher Columbus was sailing the ocean blue, just about to discover the New World -- to put things into perspective. The Frari is full of singular masterpieces like Titan's Assumption and the tomb of Canova. The cavernous interior makes for some extraordinary acoustics.

Vocal Skyline - Frari - Photo: Cat Bauer

Vocal Skyline not only sings, they move. The lighting is dramatic. Director Marco Toso Borella is a dynamo -- jumping, clapping, singing, dancing -- conducting the group with one hand in heaven and the other on earth, with Giacomo Franzoso rocking it on the keyboard. The whole production was a refreshing way to celebrate the Epiphany, the day the three Magi visit the Christ child.

Have a listen:



There were plenty of disappointed people outside the door who did not make it inside, so if you are in Venice, check out the Vocal Skyline site to see when they next plan to put on a show. The tickets are free, but to be sure of getting a seat, pick them up at least the day before the performance, if not sooner. 

After Christmas in Venice, there is a short pause before we segue to Carnevale. The show must go on...

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

Happy New Year 2019 from Venice, Italy! (And what about that new arrival tax?)

(Venice, Italy) We start the New Year in Venice with the news that a new law has passed, and day-tripping tourists will now be charged a fee from €2.5 to €5 -- up to €10 during the highest season -- to enter the city. It is not yet clear exactly how the fee will be implemented, but anything to ease the burden off residents, to me, is a good thing.

Last year the living situation in Venice was unbearable. Cruise ships, busloads and boatloads full of day-trippers dumped off people in Venice for just the day with more gusto than ever. These somnambulant masses moved through the city in huge hordes led by unorganized tour guides, and clogged up the calli, bought next to nothing, ate fast food, and left tons of trash in their wake. Their goal seemed to be to take selfies to post on social media and score more likes. If these masses paid an arrival tax, it would help to compensate for the destruction they cause.

Luigi Brugnaro, the Mayor of Venice, said the money for the arrival tax will go to increasing the amount of work for trash collectors and street sweepers, the overtime of firefighters and to reduce taxes to encourage more residents to stay put in town and stop the exodus from the historic center. “The arrival tax is now law,” he said. “We will establish a balanced and shared regulation that protects those who live, study and work in the territory.”

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro accompanies workers to collect trash - Photo: Città di Venezia

Due to its unique structure, trash collection in Venice must be done by hand and by boat. It is extremely expensive, and residents have paid far too much for far too long to keep the city clean. There are just over 50,000 residents and about 30 million tourists every year.

The trash collectors in Venice are like family; they come to our doors every morning, rain, shine or acqua alta, with a cheerful greeting to start the day. This has been a pet project for Brugnaro, who wanted to cut down on the amount of seagulls, mice and rats that feast on the garbage. The result has been that, for two years in a row, Venice has scored first place of all metropolitan cities in Italy for separating trash into recyclables; dry waste is transformed into solid fuel and used to produce electricity.

Do I agree with everything that Brugnaro does? No, but I have seen with my own eyes that the city is much cleaner under the new system, and if the mayor does something positive for Venice, it must be acknowledged.

Unlike the dramatic headlines of flooded Venice that blare across the media, this type of positive news never seems to reach the international press, nor is it a topic of discussion by out-of-towners on social media who prefer to quibble over garbled definitions of the "arrival tax" in the English-language press.

Is New York City an "open city?" Is San Francisco? If you want to enter New York City, every vehicle must pay Port Authority a toll every single time it enters; without an E-ZPass it is $15. (It is free to get out:-) That sure sounds like an "admission fee" to me. In addition, NYC has many hotel taxes - Occupancy fee, Occupancy tax, Hotel unit fee - going toward this and that.

 Or take San Francisco -- it costs between $4.75 to $8.00 to go over the Golden Gate Bridge, which turns a profit. In addition, hotel fees in San Francisco include a 14% occupancy tax, a 0.195% "California Tourism" fee plus a 1.5 to 2.25% "Tourism Improvement District" assessment. 

Why should Venice be any different? I see no reason why Venice cannot charge day-trippers an "arrival tax," "entry toll," "admission fee," or whatever you want to call it in English for the added costs the huge influx of tourists add to the maintenance of this city. (I would imagine that you would still be able to jog over the causeway and enter for free.) 

In any event, I really hope it works.  It is one step to prioritizing those of us who actually have real lives here in Venice, with real problems, not faraway fantasies conjured up by romance novels and picture books. Venice is the most beautiful city in the world, but it is because a lot of people work hard to keep it that way, and, in reality, that costs money.

May your New Year be bold, bright and beautiful with lots of positive energy and a renewed spirit of cooperation!

Happy New Year from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

Merry Christmas from Venice! 2018

Merry Christmas from Venice 2018 - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) Venice is a Catholic city, with churches in every campo, and bells atop steeples ringing hourly throughout the town. Founded in 421 A.D. just around the time of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Venice naturally leaned toward the East to the Byzantium Empire in Constantinople, whose official state religion was Christianity. Its isolated position and seafaring merchant nobility allowed Venice to create a unique brand of Catholicism, with its own myths and traditions, which I just love.   

Basiica of San Marco just before Midnight - Photo: Cat Bauer

Saint Mark the Evangelist is Venice's patron saint. His relics are in the Basilica of San Marco in Piazza San Marco. His symbol, the winged lion, is everywhere in the city -- even on the Venetian flag. Saint Mark wrote the Gospel according to Mark, and founded the Christian Church of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, one of the most important centers of Hellenistic civilization, and the intellectual and cultural center of the ancient world.

In 828 A.D., a couple hundred years after the Muslim conquest of Egypt, some Venetian merchants went down to Alexandria, stole Saint Mark's body, and brought him here to Venice after they learned that the Muslims were plundering Christian churches and turning them into mosques.

Jesus Christ on the Pala D'Oro

Saint Mark's tomb is on the high altar inside the Basilica of San Marco right below the Pala D'Oro. During the High Holy Days like Christmas, the Pala D'Oro, the "Golden Cloth," is turned toward the congregation, its Byzantine enamel sparkling with gold and silver and precious jewels. Combined with the soaring voices of the choir, the exotic scent of the incense and the glow of the candles, it is one of the most magical and spiritual places to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ during Midnight Mass.

For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
---Jesus Christ, Mark 8:36

Merry Christmas from Venice,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

The Italy of Photographers - 24 Artists' Tales at the New M9 Museum in Mestre-Venezia

Italy of Photographers at M9 - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) The Italy of Photographers. 24 Artists' Tales is the first temporary exhibition specially developed for the new M9 Museum, a structural masterpiece designed by Sauerbruch Hutton that has transformed the heart of Mestre. Curated by Denis Curti, the distinguished art director of Casa dei Tre Oci, the exhibition in the enormous space on the third floor of the museum examines the 20th century as seen through Italian photography.

I wrote about M9 a couple of weeks ago:

M9, the New Multimedia Museum of the 20th Century in Mestre, will Blow Your Mind

M9 Staircase - Photo: Cat Bauer

The contributions of 24 singular Italian photographers capture their own perspective of 20th century Italy, each one adding their unique story with a specific project. For example, the revolutionary Venetian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia chose images shot by Gianni Berengo Gardi and Carla Cerati that documented the tragic conditions of mental institutions and included them in his 1969 book Dying of Class, a militant essay that would result in the landmark passage of Law 180 or the "Basaglia Law," which closed down all of Italy's psychiatric hospitals, replacing them with a range of community-based services of rehabilitation and prevention. The Basaglia Law had worldwide impact after other countries followed the Italian model.

The 24 Photographers

From Letizia Battaglia's Mafia in Palermo to Gabriele Basilico's Milan. Portraits of Factories to Mario De Biasi's The Fifties, all 24 artists allow us to see Italy through his or her eyes and lens.

In addition to the photographs on display, the exhibition includes a vast documentary archive about each individual artist, including video-interviews and documentaries, as well as about 100 books that the public can browse.

Denis Curti - 24 Artists' Tales - Photo: Cat Bauer

The exhibition is accompanied by a beautiful catalogue published by Marsilio. From the introductory essay by Denis Curti:

"Seen all together, these photographs design a 'tranvsersality' that contributes to understanding the future. No prediction. Such 'transversality' does not just contain information. More importantly, it contains an invitation to look at the world from different points of view. And often, also present is a stage that, amidst lights and shadows, suggest what generated the change. Because photography is no doubt an ambiguous language, but it is also a concentrator of relationships and a distributor of doubts. In this sense, perhaps the photographers represented in this exhibition were never modern. At most, they were always advanced, the anticipators of a future time, pertinent narrators, the builders of emotional perimeters, capable of seeing memory as a prejudice. 

In the end, the leitmotif in all these stories is enclosed in that precise desire to give up the urge to say more than what reality actually holds within. 

It is the awareness of those who well know that if a thing is not photographed, then that thing does not exist. Because the world, seen from close up, always looks new and different."

The Italy of Photographers. 24 Artists' Tales opened to the public today and runs through June 16, 2019. Go to M9 for more information. (At the time of this writing, the English translation had not yet been posted.)

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

The Beat Goes on at Hotel Danieli in Venice

Christmas Tree at Hotel Danieli - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) American literature had always fascinated the Italian writer Fernanda Pivano (1917-2009) ever since she was young. She made her mark by translating the strange words coming from the States into Italian, opening up her countrymen's minds to what was happening across the ocean. She hung out with Hemingway and Bob Dylan, and brought the radical words of the Beat Generation to Italy, becoming a crucial part of their revolution.

On Tuesday evening, December 11, I was a guest for the performance of Art/Beat - from the Beat Generation to Contemporary Art presented at Palazzo Dandolo, better known as Hotel Danieli. The spectacular 14th century hall was transformed into a stage, and we were treated to excerpts from Allen Ginsburg's Howl, Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and William S. Burroughs' Junkie and Naked Lunch, daring landmarks that liberalized the publishing industry in the United States.

Howl, which Ginsberg began writing  in 1954 and published in 1956, is considered one of the great works of American literature, and starts off like this:

 I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall, ...

Art/Beat at Hotel Danieli - Photo: Cat Bauer

The show was directed once again by Lorenzo Maragoni, with performances by Giulia Briata and Josh Lonsdale, who also was responsible for the text -- which included a meeting where Fernanda Pivano and Jack Kerouac battled wits. Giorgio Gobbo crooned tunes of the times accompanied by his guitar -- the same crew that brought us the Shakespeare evening last month:

Juliet texts emojis but Romeo forgets his smartphone: Shakespeare in Venice at Hotel Danieli

I will confess that I had a bit of a difficult time accepting the tall, thin, blond, waspy British Josh Lonsdale's interpretation of the heavy-set bearded gay Jew from New Jersey, Allen Ginsberg, who I actually met many years ago, having grown up in New Jersey myself. And the "howl" was more like a "meow," not ripped from the actual anguish of someone like Ginsberg who was born into such a time and place. (Although I was alive, and in the same place, even I was too young to fully grasp the war in Vietnam.) However, Lonsdale did an admirable job in trying to understand the situation on an intellectual level, several generations down the road. I applaud him as a talented 26-year-old from an utterly different culture (UK) trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together in yet another utterly different culture (Italy). He has a curious mind, and is an interesting writer, and is off to a good start. 

Afterwards, the excellent cocktail dinner by Executive Chef Alberto Fol featured themed plates like "Anarchist Organic Chicken" "Peace & Love Prawns and "On the Road Lasagnette." To me, the best was the "Beat Baccalà (codfish) with cannellini bean cream -- I had two helpings, it was so delicious. The service was excellent, with empty plates being whisked away moments after they were enjoyed. There was plenty of champagne and wine -- even vin brule for the season -- and divine desserts. 

Peace & Love Prawns - Photo: Cat Bauer

Right now, Hotel Danieli is all decked out for the holidays, looking elegant and homey, with a real Christmas tree whose scent wafts through the lobby. Venice is spectacular these days, with few tourists and many friends home for the holidays. Mixing such a rebellious topic with the holiday spirit against the grand backdrop of Palazzo Dandolo was a bit revolutionary in itself, but somehow it worked, and a splendid time was had by all.

Art/Beat - from Beat Generation to Contemporary Art is part of a collaboration between the Hotel Danieli, the Teatro Stabile del Veneto and the Chamber of Commerce of Venice and Rovigo, a cultural project whose aim is to promote Venice's uniqueness and cultural and artistic heritage. 

We were informed during the dinner that there will be another performance in February -- what the show will be remains a secret, so stay tuned!

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

M9, the New Multimedia Museum of the 20th Century in Mestre, will Blow Your Mind

M9 - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) Two Venetians that I greatly respect told me that I had to go to the opening of M9, the new multimedia Museum of the 20th Century in Mestre because it was the most exciting thing to happen in a long time. I resisted because I think Mestre is one of the least attractive cities I have ever seen, especially from the point of view of someone who lives in Venice, the most beautiful city in the world.

Well, I went. M9 is something so astonishing, revolutionary and impressive that it is difficult to put the experience into words. It has completely transformed the heart of Mestre. I was there for five hours, and did not even see half of it. In fact, I will let the late Cesare De Michelis, the respected editor of Marsilio Editori who published the catalogue, explain better than I can:

"M9 is precisely this: a large-scale metropolitan urban intervention encapsulating the creation of a multi-functional and socially, economically, and culturally integrated complex in via Poerio featuring a shopping center, offices, and architecture distinguished by a categorically contemporary and strongly authorial design centered on edutainment, as still rarely experienced in Italy. 

...The truth is that it is not a museum and should not even try to be one. It is a game, an adventure, a labyrinth, something that cannot be seen in its entirety. As with an encyclopedia, you move from one entry to another, along a route that follows personal inclination and curiosity. Were it an encyclopedia of the twentieth century, it would have to be lived, read, touched, walked up and down."

De Michelis commented on the sorry state of Mestre due to its rapid, chaotic development:

"The modern approach operated without rules or planning, spread like wildfire, overcame resistance and obstacles, and ignored all notions of aesthetics and functionality. The result is there for all to see -- Veneto's first new city, the largest and most populous, became a housing and accommodation mass defined by its poor quality and lack of services. ...Increasing discontent led to four referendums on the separation of mainland Venice from its insular, lagoon-based twin and, in the 1970s, the mainland city began to look like unfinished business in need of redevelopment and freedom from too many polluting and degrading constraints."

M9 - Photo: Cat Bauer

M9 is the flagship project of the Fondazione di Venezia, which invested 110 million euros(!) in the relaunch and development of mainland Venice. Polymnia Venezia, a special-purpose vehicle of the Foundation, was responsible for its creation and development.

Designed by the Berlin office of Sauerbruch Hutton, M9 was presented during FREESPACE, the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale curated by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara. If you saw the Sauerbruch Hutton offering at La Biennale, you must see what an architectural project looks like when it actually comes to life. It is mind-blowing.

Courtyard of former convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie - Photo: Cat Bauer

There are seven buildings, three of which were newly constructed on property that once belonged to the military. There is a 280 square meter (over 3,000 square feet) cinema/auditorium on the ground floor with 200 seats with Virtual Reality visors. There is an awesome staircase that leads to the permanent exhibitions on the first and second floors, then up to the immense space on the third floor for temporary exhibitions. The basement is for technical spaces, storage and parking. It is running on solar energy produced by 276 solar panels. There are 63 geothermal probes that produce 100% of heating and 40% of cooling energy. Six new pedestrian routes connect the space to the rest of the town, plus there are four large spaces for events.

Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, President of the Italian Senate - Photo: Cat Bauer

There were plenty of dignitaries in attendance, including Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, the President of the Italian Senate, the first woman to have ever held the position; Alberto Bonisoli, the current Minister of  Culture, and Luigi Brugnaro, the current Mayor of Venice. Brugnaro said that "M9 was a museum of the Italian people," and thanked the former mayor Massimo Cacciari, under whose leadership the project had originated, for all he had done, saying that Cacciari was not able to attend, but sent his regards.

In the catalogue, Guido Guerzoni, Project Manager and CEO Polymnia Venezia describes his satisfaction that despite difficulties along the way "the original museum project has remained almost unaltered...." and uses strong words to describe the impact of social media, fake news and the Internet upon genuine knowledge and research:

"A museum is not a company or a space designed for amusement or leisure. It is, quite literally, a house in which to learn and be shaped, to forge the values of citizenship and promote the benefits of on-going education. It is a mission that can be pursued in many ways -- some engaging and fun, with the strongest possible focus on the needs of all audiences -- but one that a serious institution never loses sight of because its fulfilment equates to having the utmost respect for our personal raison d'etre. Something that is being threatened by a rising scorn for historical truth, intellectuals, memory professionals, and institutions that protect and promote memory, at a time when the most superficial form of self-learning ("I read it on the Internet") believes it can compete with knowledge gained through decades of study, where a Facebook post carries the same weight as a carefully researched scientific or academic article, where experts are branded insufferable blowhards, and the 'mainstream media' are corrupt hucksters peddling fake news."

M9 - Photo: Cat Bauer

THE PERMANENT MUSEUM

So, what, exactly, is inside this museum that challenges the concept of what, exactly, constitutes a museum?

From the press notes:

"The twentieth century was the century of greatest contradictions: incredibly rapid improvements in the quality of life for millions of people went hand in hand with the most terrible tragedies.

In just over a hundred years -- just a blip in the history of humanity -- the entire planet changed forever: the countryside was abandoned as cities expanded, cures were found for many diseases, life lasted longer and education spread further, work became lighter and resources increased, democracy took hold and human and social rights were defended.

But the twentieth century was also a time of the most horrific barbarities: two world wars with millions of dead, the destruction of entire countries, the Holocaust, genocides, nuclear bombs, widespread pollution and environmental catastrophes.

Italy was no exception. The twentieth century disrupted the way of life of its people, which had remained much the same since Roman times: at the time of Unification in 1861, there was nothing to suggest the huge leap forward that was on its way. At the same time, Italy suffered two world wars and two decades of dictatorship, the loss of rights, persecutions and all-out civil wars. All these contradictions shaped the Italy we live in today, and they formed our lifestyles, and our culture and identity."

Mastering Italian at M9 - Photo: Cat Bauer

M9 uses the pronoun "we" to describe the exhibition from a first-person Italian point of view, and is broken down into eight different sections, each with its own curator, and is presented in both Italian and (thankfully) English:

• 1. THE WAY WE WERE -- THE WAY WE ARE. Demographics and social structures
• 2. THE ITALIAN WAY OF LIFE. Consumption, traditions and lifestyles
• 3. THE RACE TO THE FUTURE. Science, technology, innovation
• 4. MONEY MONEY MONEY. Economics, work, production, and well-being
• 5. LOOKING AROUND. Landscapes and urban habitats
• 6. RES PUBLICA. The State, institutions, politics
• 7. MAKING THE ITALIANS. Education, training and information
• 8. WHO WE ARE. What makes us feel Italian

It is a complex maze, and feels just as De Michelis described, like wandering around an encyclopedia. My point of view as an American is utterly different from someone who is Italian and lived in 20th-century Italy where war was reality, not an ocean away and before my lifetime. For me, it was a great immersive experience to see life through Italian eyes, and I think everyone who visits Italy should visit M9 to gain some knowledge. Much of M9 is interactive, with games, Virtual Reality, surround cinema, etc., so it really is like a educational multi-media encyclopedia.

M9 - Photo: Cat Bauer

I gained a new respect for how responsible minds and hearts can still come together to create museums in the current climate as "an antidote to the poison spread by ignorance and dishonesty," as Guerzoni writes. I was concerned that the new hostels and hotels being built in Mestre would create even more mass tourism in Venice, but perhaps tourists seeking an educational experience will spend some time gaining knowledge at M9 instead, learning more about the Italian culture they are visiting. For sure it is a positive step to improving the conditions in Mestre. You can be certain that I will visit the Museum of the 20th Century again.

Go to M9 for more information.

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

A World Without Venice and Rhinos? Magnificence vs. Luxury

Pietro Longhi, Clara the Rhinoceros, 1751 - National Gallery, London

(Venice, Italy) Both Venice and the Rhinoceros are endangered species, ravenously desired and unthinkingly consumed by a proliferating consumer class. That was the gist of the symposium on November 24th at Palazzo Contarini Polignac entitled Beauty and the Beast: Venice and the Rhino.

The rhinoceros has walked the earth for more than 50 million years, and is the world's oldest living mammal. Its horn has become one of the most costly luxury items on the planet -- a rhino is killed every eight hours to satisfy demand. The rhino horn has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for millennia, but increasingly it is being used as a status symbol to display success and wealth.

Humans have projected all sorts of miraculous attributes onto the rhino horn, just as humans have projected all sorts of fantasies onto the city of Venice. According to legend, Venice was founded on March 25, 421 A.D., nearly 1,600 years ago. Its monumental churches and impressive palaces still stand after centuries, nestled inside the lagoon. Nowadays, each day an average of 60,000 tourists descend upon a city composed of 54,000 residents. Both the rhino and Venice are in danger of becoming extinct.

Palazzo Contarini Polignac

Catherine Kovesi of Emporium is a historian of early modern Italian history at the University of Melbourne and was the organiser and curator of Venice and the Rhino, which kicked off with Bikem de Montebello, the Managing Director of Palazzo Contarini Polignac, giving us a fascinating history of the palace.

In 1900, American-born Winnaretta Singer (1865-1943), heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune, bought the 15th-century palace on the Grand Canal as a birthday gift for her husband, Prince Edmond de Polignac, a composer of music, who died shortly thereafter. Winnaretta was a great patron of the arts, and Palazzo Polignac was the center of her extraordinary contributions to the cultural life of Venice, a city both she and Edmond cherished. Today, thanks to the efforts of the de Montebello family, Palazzo Contarini Polignac remains a vibrant center of Venice's cultural life.

Catherine Kovesi & Gigi Bon - Venice & the Rhino - Photo: Cat Bauer

Catherine Kovesi's focus is on debates surrounding luxury consumption in the early modern world, and is a lover of Venice herself. One day, while wandering around the city, she stumbled upon Mirabilia, the art studio of Gigi Bon, an artist who feels closer to the rhinoceros than to people. In fact, Gigi's rhino sculptures so riveted Catherine that they inspired the symposium itself.

In 2017, worldwide luxury retail sales totaled 1.2 trillion euro. Personal luxury goods -- the core of the market -- have grown 191% since 1995. Catherine took us on a journey that started with the long history of the word "luxury" compared to the word "magnificent." Centuries ago, luxury was a vice, not a virtue, and meant "excess" and was used to describe people who overly indulged; luxuria meant "lust," and was a sin linked to women. By the Elizabethan period the word was associated with adultery.

Magnificence, on the other hand, described the elite who spent on a large scale for the greater good, which was expected of members of the aristocracy. Speaker Lynn Johnson, Founding Director of Nature Needs More said, "Follow the money." There are more than 150 churches in Venice. Venetians did not need another church, yet they built magnificent houses of worship and enhanced them with precious works of art. The pursuit of luxury was practiced by the mediocre and those with vain ambition. The magnificent believed true success was what you left to the world.

Mass-produced souvenir picture of Clara produced by Van der Meer

"One of a kind: Clara the rhinoceros in 18th-century Venice and the tale of a missing horn"

The tale of Clara the rhinoceros was a pre-recorded video presentation by Glynis Ridley of the University of Louisville, who, unfortunately, could not make it to Venice. In 1741, a Dutch sea captain named Douwemout Van der Meer obtained a female Indian rhino calf named Clara, whose mother had been killed by hunters. When Clara was a month old, she was adopted by Jan Albert Sichterman, the director of the Dutch East India Company, and grew up wandering around his property, becoming quite tame.

Sichterman then either sold or gifted Van der Meer with Clara, reuniting the rhino with her sea captain, who took her on a grand European tour where she became a sensation, appearing before emperors and kings. She was only the fifth rhino seen on European soil since the fall of the Roman empire.

Pietro Longhi, Clara the Rhinoceros, 1751 - Ca' Rezzonico, Venice

In 1751, en route to Venice for an appearance at Carnevale, Clara shed her horn, captured in the painting of Pietro Longhi, which you can see at Ca' Rezzonico in Venice, commissioned by Giovanni Grimaldi. Longhi created an almost identical painting for Girolomo Mocenigo, now at the National Gallery in London. Look closely, and you will see that fewer people are wearing masks in the painting at Ca' Rezzonico.

We know Clara’s story because of the research done by Glynis Ridley, who won the Institute of Historical Research Prize for figuring out just who the heck that rhino was at the 1751 Venice Carnival.

Shih Li-Jen & Rhino sculpture at Vernissage - Photo: Cat Bauer

The symposium brought together an international group of scholars, artists, poets and writers, who explored the intersections between Venice and the rhino. Other speakers included Jane Da Mosto, an environmental scientist and Executive Director of We Are Here Venice, whose topic was Venice: A Fragile and Resilient City; Sophie Bostock of the Orientalist Museum in Qatar, who spoke about Clara in Qatar: The story of a Meissen porcelain; Bruno Martinho of the European University Institute, whose topic was Rhino horns and scraps of unicorn: The sense of touch and the consumption of rhino horns in early modern Iberia; and Sabrina Ardizzoni of the University of Bologna who presented the Taiwanese sculptor Shih Li-Jen: His Oeuvre, and his vision of the rhino and unfettered consumption. Shih Li-Jen said, "My goal is creating rhino sculptures to inspire people to help save these creatures."

Rhinoceros, detail from mosaic floor, St Mark’s Basilica, Venice, thirteenth century.
Photo ©Mark Smith

The earliest representation of a rhinoceros in Venice is in the Basilica of San Marco in the 13th-century pavement close to the altar of the Madonna Nicopeia. As a child, Gigi Bon was so fascinated by that rhino that she identified more as a rhinoceros than as a little girl. For over 25 years, she has developed her unique vision of the profound links between her own identity, the city of Venice and the predicament of the rhinoceros. It is believed that particular image of the rhino was inspired by Marco Polo's description of his travels to the Island of Basma of what he thought were unicorns:

"There are wild elephants in the country, and numerous unicorns, which are very nearly as big. They have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick... 'Tis a passing ugly beast to look upon, and is not in the least like that which our stories tell of it being of as being caught in the lap of a virgin; in fact, 'tis altogether different from what we fancied."

Cat Bauer with poet Ronna Bloom

Sprinkled throughout the symposium was the inspirational poetry of the Canadian poet Ronna Bloom, Poet in Residence at Sinai Health Toronto, which she read beautifully. I found it deeply moving. Ronna's poem about Venice, Gracious Hospitable City, captured perfectly the unique, almost inexplicable love that so many people seem to feel about Venice.

I am always amazed at how many people fall in love with Venice, some to the point of obsession, and how many repeat visitors -- who don't live here -- become possessive of the city like jealous lovers pining from afar. In contrast, Ronna's pure poetry struck just the right key:

Gracious
Hospitable
City

by Ronna Bloom

I appeal to the gods of the lagoon, to the dirty filthy spirit
of boat spume and masks discarded,
Help me understand Venice. 

To Fondamente Nove which ends at the water: throw me in.
To the man who took my suitcases on board answering his cell phone,
"Mamma, dimmi." Speak to me.

I appeal to the resistant force inside
who holds her secret heart secret
so no one can make a Las Vegas Doge's Palace of her love.

"Everyone loves Venice." And I nod.
But does everyone have a hidden life revealed to them
in the mirror of a place they've never been?
A place that's cherished and also grieved?
I knew I had to come, but for years avoided it,
as though beauty were a wound I couldn't look at.
Remembering Rilke, beauty is the first touch of terror we can still bear.

How to care for a place being shipped into the sea by its keepers
sold to the highest bidder and
offered as a knock-off of  itself to those who don't know?

While the ones who do know
age perilously on the slow #1 vaporetto to work --
or from human overwhelm, take a cart into the calle
and ram it into a group of zombie-eyed walkers
with small flags from around the world --
or who host every minute they walk out their door --
or restore paintings in the back of Accademia to repair the sky.
Whose dogs' back legs shake like spider webs as they crouch --
and whose stringed instruments break the fragile air
the way the high tide siren does --
who still marvel at their own churches, arches, light and water
with anyone who'll look, whispering the beauty is free --
and lean out their tired windows and smile.

Respect does not mean being left alone, but cared for.
Who can answer that in a language everyone will understand?
Dimmi.

The symposium stressed that a new conversation is needed. That the Academy needs to talk to industry. That the Academy needs to talk to conservationists. That the conversation needs to move away from battling the feeders of consumer demand towards understanding consumer motives. That creating empathy in consumers is probably a losing battle. That conservationists need a new paradigm.

Venetian artists: Fabrizio Plessi with Gigi Bon at Vernissage - Photo: Cat Bauer

Afterwards, there was a Vernissage for Rhinoceros: Luxury's Fragile Frontier in the Magazzino Gallery, Palazzo Contarini Polignac's exhibition space, featuring the art of Gigi Bon and Shih Li-Jen, and the poetry of Ronna Bloom, which is open to the public until December 21, 2018.

I haven't spent such an enlightening and educational day in a long time, surrounded by intelligent, thoughtful and magnificent people. Venice needs more symposiums like this. Kudos to Catherine Kovesi and Bikem de Montebello for organizing the event, and thank you to all the speakers for imparting their gems of wisdom.

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

Remembering Venetian Valeria Solesin, Killed in the November 2015 Paris Attacks

Graduation day in Piazza San Marco - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) One of the perks of graduating from Ca' Foscari, Venice's university, is that the ceremony takes place in Piazza San Marco, one of the most breathtaking venues on the planet. On November 16th, thousands of friends and relatives witnessed young students take that monumental step on their life's voyage.

Three years ago today, the residents of Venice gathered in Piazza San Marco for a much sadder event: the candlelight vigil for Valeria Solesin, a 28-year-old Venetian PhD candidate at Sorbonne University, killed by ISIL on Friday, Novemember 13, 2015 in the Paris terrorist attacks.

I will never forget that evening when so many citizens of Venice gathered together in solidarity for Valeria. It was an extremely emotional and poignant moment, with thousands of candles lighting up the dark. Here is an excerpt of a post I wrote at the time:

Candlelight Vigil for Valeria Solesin - Venice Victim of Paris Terrorist Attacks

Candlelight Vigil for Valeria Solesin in Piazza San Marco - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) Thousands of people gathered in Piazza San Marco last evening to honor Valeria Solesin, a young, beautiful, intelligent Venetian woman, one of Venice's -- and the world's -- brightest stars, who was senselessly murdered by Daesh aka ISIL in Paris on Friday night. We gathered to remember all the Paris victims, but especially Valeria, a hometown girl. About seven thousand residents of Venice, young and old, made the journey to the center of the city to hold aloft twinkling points of light, illuminating the darkness that has descended on the planet. Many Venetians arrived with their children.

Valeria Solesin

Valeria Solesin represented everything good, empowering and compassionate about Europe. She was a brilliant young woman, who deeply believed in peace, not war. Valeria grew up in Venice, graduating in 2006, then got her degree at Trento University. For the last four years she lived in Paris as a PhD candidate at the prestigious Sorbonne University, studying sociology, with an emphasis on family and children. For years, she was a volunteer for Emergency, an Italian NGO that provides assistance to the civilian victims of war -- the extreme opposite of everything ISIL represents. She was killed at the Bataclan concert hall at age 28.

Click to read the entire post.

Graduation Day 2018 in Piazza San Marco - Photo: Cat Bauer

An award in Valeria's name is now in its second edition. The Premio Valeria Solesin is a competition for students at Italian universities inspired by the young Venetian researcher. Prizes go to the best Master's research theses on "Female talent as a determining factor for the development of the economy, ethics and meritocracy in our country," a topic to which Valeria had dedicated her work. It is open to students of 34 top Italian universities, public and private, and is supported by 14 companies, with Allianz Worldwide Partners promoting the 1st prize. Winners of the second edition will be announced on November 27, 2018.

UPDATE 2022: The Valeria Solesin Award, promoting female talent, is now in its sixth edition.

Valeria Solesin was doing important work on the role of women in society. It is an extreme tragedy that her life was stolen from her at such a young age. Let us hope that the memory of the young Venetian woman inspires others to follow her path, and that positive female energy helps to balance the planet.

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog