Letting the side down (Day 29)

Today has been very lazy. I had my first proper lye-in, but it was needed after being so busy for so long.

After pottering around and doing some emails I thought I better head out to a few of the collateral exhibitions. I started at Lech Majewski’s Bruegel Suite, in the San Lio church, a few doors down from the apartment. It was a great space to show work, I got told off for taking pictures of the church, a man told me I was only allowed to take pictures of the artwork. Hmm, I could have got into a debate about that one, but didn’t as I had managed to take the picture I wanted before he spotted me. I sometimes wish I was religious because all the nik naks and paraphernalia that go with it are really interesting and the buildings so ornate and beautiful, well some of them anyway.

Next on my list was the Roma pavilion, I’d heard it was very good. I arrived to be greeted by this.

Oh well, onto Anton Ginzberg, on another recommendation. It was also closed.

 So I diverted my attention to this little thing in the wall outside.

There are plaques and adornments like this on so many buildings here. I wish my historical knowledge was better so I could decipher them, but I just have to do the girly thing and think that they’re ‘nice and pretty’.

On a similar vein, I’d read that when Venice was thriving there were certain rules about how one conducted oneself, and a big no no was to act in a pompous manner, show off your wealth or success or generally get above your station. Venice was run as a kind of democracy, to stop any one person becoming too powerful. Infact, if you were believed to have been too successful compared to your fellow citizens you could be hung, to rebalance the order and keep everyone on the same level. This ‘fairness’ is how Venice kept her power and independence for so long. To help govern this system they had post boxes in the shape of lion’s mouths (bocche di leone) in the walls so that you could report any incidents by fellow citizens you felt inappropriate and worthy of such a punishment. You could report anything from swearing or bad sanitary habits to treason and conspiracy. I’m pretty sure this is one of them, I pass it every day on my walk to work.

Back to my day of art viewing, and I wasn’t having much luck, apart from this simple triptych. I saw it two years ago and was happy to see it was still here, just a bit worn away. Of course they could go in reverse order.

I was going to give up and go for a spritz but that would have been really rubbish of me. Get up at 12pm and by 4pm I’m ready to start my evening. I’m not sure how well that would go down in my report to the Arts Council. “How do you think the opportunity has benefitted you Nia?” “Well normally I have to work in the daytime but because I’ve had days off here I’ve been able to start drinking much earlier, which has really helped”. Not the best career move. So in the spirit of not wasting the whole day I went to try and find some art that was open.

I decided to brave Days of Yi, I’d heard it wasn’t up to much. My informants were correct. Unfortunately I have to say this is probably one of the worst shows I’ve seen so far. It was sponsored by Clarins, which might have accounted for the funny smell in the last room.

I headed around the back of the Arsenale to find an exhibition called ‘One Thousand Ways to Defeat Entropy’. To get there I had to walk on a narrow bridge attached to the wall that holds Venice in at the back, looking out over Cimitero and the northern lagoon.

I haven’t been to Cimitero yet (the only cemetery in Venice) but am planning on doing that trip on Thursday (Day 31).

I found an exhibition, but I don’t know if it was the one I was looking for. I liked this piece by Marco Maria Guiseppe Scifo. A model of a fighter jet going round and round while playing a jewellery box tune and a bit of good old fashioned drawing to accompany it.

I wasn’t so keen on this aviation themed piece though, given my fear of flying. 

The exhibition was massive, with mainly Italian artists in part of the Arsenale and I was pretty much on my own in there. I had to walk through a warehouse to get to it. They switched the lights off while I was in there and I panicked thinking I’d been locked in. It will serve me right for rushing around trying to see everything in the afternoon, and not getting up in time.  

To get back there was only one route that would take me over the correct bridges to bring me out where I needed to go. It wasn’t complicated and I thought I knew where I was going.

This is the most spectacular piece of getting lost I’ve managed so far. I ended up going round and round the same narrow streets in the north east area of Castello for a good ten minutes, too stubborn to look at my map.

But I live to tell the tale, and by this time it was after 6pm, everything was closed, and I had an appointment with some friends and a spritz on Via Garibaldi. Then we really let the side down and in a proper ‘Brits Abroad’ style we went to an Irish pub and shared a litre of Guinness. I’m really sorry and I promise I won’t do it again!