Almost Home (Day 40)

Tomorrow is my last day in work, last full day in Venice, and last blog. Pinocchio knew. He’d changed his pose and was waving goodbye as I passed.

Today I spend my last day off frantically rushing around all the pavilions I hadn’t seen yet. When I arrived six weeks ago I thought I had ages, but it’s quickly caught up with me and, as always, I left everything to the last minute.

I started at the Giardini as I had missed three pavilions and the Illuminations exhibitions last time I was there. All I had to see was Finland, Hungary and Netherlands. When I got there a tree had fallen on Finland and I realised I had actually already seen Holland, so not the most successful start. I really enjoyed Hungary so that made up for it.

Illuminations this year was a bit like the Arsenale. It felt like they had been reined in and made to show a lot less art, which made it a much better show. Here’s some pictures of nice things I saw there…

This last piece was inspired by the 70’s in Argentina when the dictatorship banned ven diagrams in primary education as it was thought they could provide a model for subversive thought.

I then headed past the Welsh pavilion and onto the little island of San Pietro to see the Lucid Dreams show. Bearing in mind it was just before 1pm and all the shows close at 6pm, being greeted by a sign that says ‘Back at 5pm’ isn’t that helpful. So no Finland and no Lucid Dreams for me.

Nearby there were some happy little skeletons.

And a not so happy floating fish.

I popped back to the apartment for lunch and then headed out to see some more art. As I don’t have much blogging time left I wanted to throw this in. Even though it doesn’t really follow on from anything I’ve just said. It’s a nice sticker, and that’s reason enough for me.

On my travels I passed another freaky house (there was one on day 28 too). The owner had witch dolls and strange leather sculptures hanging from the balcony attached with meat hooks.

And then it was 6pm, everything closed and that was it in terms of art for me for the trip. I’m working tomorrow and then I’m off.  So all that is unseen will have to stay that way. I’ve seen some great art, and met some really lovely people so I don’t mind that it’s almost time to come home at all.

Talking of lovely people… During his last week Tom kept nagging me to put up a certain image on the blog. Every day we would walk past a shop that sold really tasty olive bread and gorgonzola. We’d stop quite often to get some bread and it would come in a paper bag with a cartoon image of four small children in some kind of fairy tale setting. Tom thought that the bag would look much better if it also had Eddie, the Iron Maiden mascot, on it and kept pestering me to draw him on and post it up. So Tom, here you go! Not sure the old man in the shop will agree with you recommendation.