The Venice Biennale is more than just an exhibition – it’s an immersive art experience. Held every two years, this event transforms Venice into a dynamic canvas of creativity.
I’m very proud to have assisted journalist Neil Robbins in the final reading of his thoughtful book: Venice, an Odyssey.
Memories of the city he had seen when he was a student cross the different reality of Venice today.
A profound reportage on the environmental, social, and economic challenges of Venice today. I warmly recommend it to anyone interested in the complicated relationship between cultural heritage, economic profit, and environmental issues.
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Venice was one of the most international and vibrant capitals in ancient Europe. Many craftspeople and artists were attracted by the wealth that was invested to build new churches and palaces and embellish them with artworks, sculptures, funeral monuments, wooden ceilings, and fabrics of any sort.
Who built among the most extraordinary architecture of Venice?
A rich exhibition of 18thcentury Venetian art will bring you closer to the light and gentle spirit of the Rococo.
Masterpieces by great artists like Canaletto and Tiepolo dominates in the former apartment of the Doge; you can admire the bright pastel palette of Tiepolo and the cityscapes full of air and light of Canaletto. You can indulge in details that show daily life in the 18thcentury in the vedute and be captivated by the sensuousness of the figures in mythological stories.
Most happy to share one of the many beautiful reviews, in German, on the volume I made together with the German photographer Norbert Heyl about the Gardens of Venice!
@Terra Magica Verlag 2017.
»Die Gärten von Venedig« von Cristina Gregorin, Norbert Heyl
I’m happy to share a very useful set of information and tips for our many visitors! The handbook has been elaborated by my friends of the Gruppo 25 aprile: “a group of Venetians, “native” and not (Venetians by choice, in all cases) (…) now risk being forced out of our environment (…) because of the cost of living and the lack of appropriate job opportunities.”
As we Venetians are pleased to have you as a visitor in our magnificent city, full of art treasures and with a long and extraordinary history, we’d love to prevent you from being cheated.
This information has been conceived especially for the time of Carnival but they are useful all year round.
Santa Maria dei Miracoli
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Ezra Pound called it a ‘jewel box’; today it is one of the most popular churches to celebrate a wedding. The Miracoli church is intimate and at the same time spectacular hidden shrine of Venice.
Dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, but called by everyone Our Lady of the Miracles because of a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary standing above the main altar, this late 15th- century church is a symbol of the Venice of that time: rich, with a sophisticated sense of beauty, proud to carry on the classical legacy of the antique world, and proud of its very miracle: to stand on the water, like the church itself.
Giant’s Staircase, courtyard of the Doge’s Palace.
The Doge’s Palace of Venice is a shrine with lavishing gilt ceilings, great masterpieces by Veronese and Tiepolo, and hundreds of years of history visible on its many paintings but now there is a new reason to visit it.
18th-century banker; Jewish banks must have looked just the same.
In the 17th and 18th century the Jews of Venice were a flourishing community.
Officially, they could work only as moneylenders, have pawn-shops or deal with second-hand clothes and furnishing, but then of which quality! Sir Wotton, an English nobleman who lived in Venice, bought furniture, fabrics, carpets, chandeliers, and other various objects in the Jewish Ghetto. Even most of the decorations for the golden boat of the Doge, the Bucintoro, came from the Jewish shops.
Cino Zucchi, new construction on the Giudecca island, 1996-2003
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People often think that Venice is a city where history has stopped with the fall of the Republic; a city that has not been touched by modernity.
On the contrary, throughout the 19th and 20th century, there have been intensive discussions on new urban plans that would help to develop the economy; thousands of buildings were pulled down and reconstructed in new forms.