buongiorno venezia weekly newsletter by veniceword.com
"BUONGIORNO VENEZIA - The News from Venice"
published weekly by VENICEWORD INTERNATIONAL MEDIA SERVICES
in Venice, Italy -- 16 November 2009
VeniceWord CLUB edition
NOTICE: If you reprint this information, please credit our site (a link will be appreciated). Special reports / photographs are provided on demand -- just send us a message telling us what you need. Special fees for VW Club members.
new - VeniceWord Club
special offer and announcement:
"Venice from Above" photobook
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BIENNALE International Art Festival
LAST DAYS
Besides the Biennale venues, don't forget to visit Punta della Dogana, recently restored by F.Pinault.
Most collateral events are over: check with the Biennale free map, available at Giardini, Arsenale, and main locations
BIENNALE opening hours: 10 am - 6 pm; tickets: 18 euro (Biennale is one of the few fairs/festivals where the tickets bought online cost more than the paper ones (1.50 euro more); the ticket is valid for one entrance in Giardini della Biennale and Arsenale, the main venues. Entrance to the collateeral events is free. Permanent pass 60 euro. No pets admitted.Last day: traditional free entrance for Venice residents
and Giudecca Art Gallery's partner
TRATTORIA AI CACCIATORI
Giudecca
20 percent discount for VeniceWord's
and Giudecca795 Art Gallery's friends
A VeniceWord Club's partner
CA' MACANA MASKS
Carnival is over, but its fascination remains.
The Editor's pick of this week:
The Plague Doctor mask
40 euro
plus shipping and taxes.
(This kind of mask -- in this simple natural color or in white -- was really used by doctors to protect themselves from the plague. At the bottom of the mask nose, some medicinal herbs were kept to help prevent the infection. The Plague Doctor mask became then a character in the Commedia dell'Arte, and now similar masks can be seen in shops, also brightly decorated)
The Club members who'll shop in one of the two ateliers of Dorsoduro 1169 - Campo S.Barnaba, and Dorsoduro - Toletta, will be granted a special discount on cash payments, and presented with the book "Maschere a Venezia" (price 15.50 euro, free for VWClub purchasing)
71 pages, more than 80 photos and color pictures; cm 20 x 27
This book is a concise history of the most typical masks worn in Venice and by the performers of the Commedia dell'Arte.
In addition, the book includes a detailed section on mask production techniques, and a series of photographs of the Venetian Carnival
CLUB OFFERS
.Special offer of the week: mixed media on canvas by Silviya Radeva. Enquire for details
All works are for sale.
10% discount on purchases
for the VeniceWord CLUB members
***
Biennale Collateral event:
Liu Zhong (China)
ended on 15 Sept.
Catalogue and prints available at Giudecca 795
***
More on Wikipedia and www.giudecca795.comRENT A FLAT IN VENICE
A choice of lovely and comfortable apartments for your vacation. Minimum three nights.
5% discount for VWClub members
SUGGESTED EVENTS in VENICE
UPCOMING:
Sir John Eliot Gardiner will direct the New year's Concert at Teatro La Fenice; with soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci, tenor Francesco Meli.
The dates: 30 December 2009 at 8pm, 31 December at 4 pm. Live tv broad on RAI UNO : 1st January 2010 at 11.15am.
EXHIBITS
- 53rd BIENNALE, 90 artists at 77 national pavilions, incl. Joan Jonas, Lygia Pape, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Xu Tan, Thomas Saraceno, Nikhil Chopra and Anawana Haloba. Until 22 November 2009.
- "Prendergast in Italy" until 3 January 2010 - Peggy Guggenheim Collection. For the first time the major works by American artist, Maurice Prendergast, during two trips to Italy (1898-99 and 1911-12): a body of work that is one of the most attractive and revealing in the story of American art. Seventy-five of his Italian watercolors, oils, and monotypes as well as photographs, films, guidebooks, and travel advertisements that situate the work within the new visual culture that Americans had embraced by 1900.
- "Leonardo, L'uomo vitruviano tra arte e scienza", Gallerie dell'Accademia, until 10 January 2020
- "Torcello. Alle origini di Venezia tra Oriente e Occidente", Museo Diocesano until 10 January 2010.
- Futurists masterpieces of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection; Guggenheim Foundation, until 31 Dec 2009
- FOR FAMILIES - WE SUGGEST "Art4Family' , a project by Guggenheim Foundation, art labs dedicated to children between 4 and 10 years old and their families; every Sunday from 3 pm to 4.30 pm in cooperation with the Fondazione di Venezia and the 'Academy of Fine Arts of Venice
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"Luciano Gaspari e il Vetro", Glass Museum, Murano, until 24 November 2009)
Among the FESTIVALS, MUSIC & THEATRE
RELIGIOUS and TRADITIONAL: Festa della Madonna della Salute, Basilica, 21 November 2009. all day (see the news)
Traditional religioius pilgrimage to the Madonna della Salute Church. Near Punta della Dogana from 12 noon to 2pm, you can join the "Il Trabacolo e la castradina" initiative, with "castradina" food and red wine, to support the navigation of the last old boat "trabacolo"
BALLET: Venezia inDanza 2009; Galà with Wien Opera dancers. 22 and 29 November 2009, 5.30 pm. Tickets (+39) 041. 2424
CONCERTS: Musica a Casa Goldoni; fridays at 6 pm
Weekly concerts performed by Ensemble Musica Venezia with the aim of promoting music by 17th and 18th-century Italian composers and other composers of this period, like Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach, associated with Venice
CONCERTS: On Fridays and Saturdays, at 5pm and 7pm, the Querini Foundation hosts 'Concerts at Palace', brief concerts lasting approximately 30 minutes included in the entrance ticket. The programme includes Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music from the XIV to the XVIII centuries. Info +39 041 2711441
- see also: VeniceWord restaurants quick guide
COOKBOOKS *****
COOKBOOKS
COOKBOOKS
BUY NOW Harry's Bar Cookbook
See also Restaurants.
MOST POPULAR PICS:
Get the best out of your Life
INSPIRATIONAL
video collection:
Randy Pausch's Last Lecture
Achieving Your Childwood Dream
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007.
Randy Pausch's Lecture
Time Management
"A very pragmatic talk, how to get more things done in your time"
ACQUA ALTA? A high tide information service alerts the cities and islands which face the Venice lagoon (such as Venice itself and Chioggia) some hours before the peaks. Sirens placed throughout the city and SMS messages on residents' cellphones try to update pedestrians and SMS subscribers ASAP. You can get information from a 24 hour call centre - with recorded messages - on (+39) 041.24.11.996. To subscribe to the free SMS service, click here. The service works when in Venice. Boots may be necessary to walk in the lower areas (St.Mark's) in given hours.
Weather forecasts can be found at:
http://www.veniceword.com/weather.html
Greetings from Venice!
Basilica Madonna della Salute (G Snowdon)
21 NOVEMBER MADONNA DELLA SALUTE FEAST
FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE:
- NOT TO MISS THIS WEEK: A salute to the feast
- Venice resurrected... in pink
- Amp-le support for the opera.
- Biennale Architecture exhibits a sex change.
- Leonardo draws... a crowd.
REMINDER:
- 2009, the year of Futurism, with shows throughout Italy
- Art shows in Italy - 2009 calendar of events (updated 2 November 2009)
- UPCOMING EVENTS
- BIENNALE Art
- DINING. Suggested restaurants
NEWS - As a way of giving thanks to the Virgin Mary for freeing Venice from the Plague of 1630-31, as happens every year on 21 November, Venice is celebrating one of its most important religious feasts, La Festa della Madonna della Salute (Our Lady of Good Health). The basilica was built to fulfil a vow made by Doge Nicolò Contarini when Venice was desperate after being str(uck for a second time by the deadly disease in 1575. Thousands of inhabitants visit the main altar of the Salute Church, at the end of the Grand Canal, by crossing a votive bridge. As a curio, see this week's Ca' Macana Mask)
NEWS. The usual response from Mayor Cacciari in such cases is, "I do not care." Yet, the "funeral of Venice", organised by the association "Venessia.com", caught the media’s attention. Following a gondola with a pink coffin, a procession of boats reached Ca' Farsetti -- the office of the mayor -- where the coffin was opened to reveal a "phoenix" (the avian symbol of rebirth, after which the Teatro La Fenice is named). About 300 cheered the rebirth of Venice with prosecco wine and "spritzers". The "funeral", aimed at persuading the Municipality to fight the constant depopulation of the historical centre by initiating new projects and encouraging residents not to leave the city despite its high costs, will be followed on 25 March by the celebration of Venice’s anniversary. City councillor Mara Rumiz, however, did not like that this event was associated with scientific research, promoted by the National Geographic Society, to look for "authentic" Venetian DNA. In the editor's amused opinion, the researchers are likely to discover genetic modifications related only to the effect of the prosecco.
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NEWS. If you felt disappointed or even horrified at hearing that maestro Franco Zeffirelli wants the singers at the Arena di Verona to be amplified, you will probably be surprised that Oscar-winning music composer and director Enrico Morricone totally agrees. Zeffirelli's official complaints were quite a shock, but fans are not as surprised. Morricone is an authority on the matter, and he knows the venue quite well, having directed two important concerts at the Arena: one in 2006 to celebrate his career as a movie soundtrack composer (best known for the music of Sergio Leone's "spaghetti westerns" starring a young Clint Eastwood) and "Voices from Silence" in memory of the victims of 11 September. The acoustics of the Arena, Morricone explains, force the performers to sing too loudly, and this results in a loss of vocal interpretation. So some amplification is needed, in their opinion, and the Foundation for the Arena di Verona is working on a project in which technology can help solve these problems while retaining a natural sound. Adding the microphones in an opera arena would be "a sacrilege, historically speaking," said tenor Placido Domingo, "but this would help to improve the shows."
NEWS. The Biennale Board appointed Kazuyo Sejima as Director of the Architecture section of the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, which will take place in Venice from 29 August to 21 November 2010 with previews on 26, 27, and 28 August. Sejima, who was born in Japan in 1956 and is a leading exponent of contemporary architecture, will be the first female curator of the Biennale's Architecture section. After working in the studio of Toyo Ito, she opened her own studio in Tokyo in 1987. In 1995, together with Ryue Nishizawa, she founded SANAA, the Tokyo studio that has designed some of the most innovative recent works of architecture found around the world. The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (Japan) won the Golden Lion in 2004 as the most significant work presented at the Biennale’s 9th International Architecture.
NEWS - Last week, one of the most popular exhibitions was "Leonardo: the Vitruvian Man between Science and Art" which is on display at the Gallerie dell'Accademia until 10 January 2010. The drawing is one of his most famous, maybe even more renowned than his self-portrait, and was created by Leonardo in Milan around 1490. It is pen and ink on paper with notes based on the work of the architect Vitruvius Pollio. The subject is a male figure -- in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart -- simultaneously inscribed in a circle and a square, and it stands as an example of the perfect proportion of the human figure. The precious drawing has been stored in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice since 1822 and is displayed only occasionally. Many of you may have held a little Vitruvian Man in your hands: Leonardo's drawing is the icon representing Italy in the reverse side of the one euro coins (the reverse side of the two euro is Dante Alighieri, Italy’s greatest poet and the father of the Italian language. Hours: Mondays 8:15 am – 2 pm (last entry at 1:15 pm); Tuesdays to Sundays 8:15 am – 7:15 pm (last entry at 6:30 pm).
Remember: Starting from 27 November 2009 until 7 March 2010 at Palazzo della Gran Guardia in VERONA will be held the exhibition "Corot e l’Arte Moderna. Souvenirs et Impressions", one of the exhibition projects result of the collaboration between the Musée du Louvre and Comune di Verona within a long-term agreement with the goal to increase the visits of cultural sites.
See the webcam over the Calatrava Bridge and the other active webcams of Venice clicking here
Some images may not be available: we are not operating the webcams and are not responsible for them.
Let us remind you...
Scheduled strikes: November-December 2009 / January 2010.
17 November, flights: 24 hrs for Meridiana and CAI-Alitalia flights;
25 November AirOne flights, 12noon-4 pm;
9 December: AirOne flights, 24 hour strike
ROME AIRPORTS: 10 January 2010, Enav personnel, 4 hrs strike: 12 noon-4 pm
In art, 2009 is the year of Futurism, the influential 20th-Century Italian art movement, turning 100. Many exhibitions have been lined up to commemorate it, especially in Milan which is also organising Futurism trams, taxis, dances, shows, readings, and restaurant menus. Futurism was officially launched with the publication of a manifesto by Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti in 1909 expressing the movement's key ideas: a love of technology, industry, and speed and a loathing of the past.
MILAN has over 100 events planned for the course of the year.
In VENICE the celebration of Futurism at present is an exhibit exploring abstract art as a concept, comparing the work of Balla and other European artists of his day. On 13 November a Serata Futurista at Teatro Goldoni. The Guggenheim Foundation is also displaying its Futurist artworks (until 31 dec)
BRESCIA - UPCOMING Museo di Santa Giulia: Inca, Origins and Mysteries of the Civilisation of Gold; 250 artefacts, 4 December 4- 27June 2010.
FERRARA - Palazzo dei Diamanti: Boldini In The Paris Of The Impressionists; show on Ferrara-born artist's 'beau monde' portraiture years from 1871 to 1886; until 10 January 2010.
FLORENCE:
- Medici Chapels: show on life and times of Ferdinand I de' Medici, powerful third grand duke of Tuscany, (1549-1609), marking 400th anniversary of his death; until 1st November
MANTOVA - Palazzo Ducale: 15 installations by Stefano Arienti; until 6 January 2010.
MILAN
- Palazzo Reale: 250 paintings from influential 19th-century Scapigliatura movement; until 22 November
PADUA - Palazzo Zabarella: Telemaco Signorini, show comparing 'macchiaioli' master with contemporaries like Degas, Van Gogh and Courbet; until 31 January 2010.
PASSARIANO - Villa Manin: The Age of Courbet and Monet; 134 works, until 7 March 2010
PIACENZA - Fondazione Ricci Oddi: 19th-Century Tuscan Painting, macchiaioli and beyond, 40 works including Fattori, Signorini, Boldini, De Nittis, Nomellini, Corcos; until 2nd May 2010.
PRATO - Museo del Tessuto: The Style of the Czar; 130 imperial silks and paintings that went from Italy to Ancient Muscovy and later Russian courts between 14th and 18th centuries; loaned by major Italian and Russian galleries including, for the first time, the Hermitage Textile Collection; until 10 January 2010.
ROME:
- Colosseum: 'Divus Vespasanius', celebration of Emperor Vespasian, general who took throne from Nero in 69 AD and transformed Rome, founding Flavian dynasty which built Colosseum; until 10 January 2010;
- Various sites including Forum, Piazza Barberini: 'La Ruta de la Paz', monumental bronze and marble works by Costa Rican sculptor Jorge Jimenez Deredia; exhibition outlined at Palazzo delle Esposizioni; until 30 November
TRENTO - Palazzo delle Albere: Hayez, Prati, Bezzi, Segantini and other 19th-century Trento painters; until 22 November.
VIGEVANO - Castello Visconteo: Leonardo da Vinci's output during his time in Lombardy; 'virtual codex' on flying, botany, mathematics, weaponry, astronomy, engineering and architecture; until 5 April 2010.
- same venue: art and artefacts showing powerful Milan Sforza dynasty, particularly Leonardo's best-known patron, Ludovico Sforza; until 31January 2010.
THE BODY OF SOUND
FARE MONDI - MAKING WORLDS: Over 284,000 visitors since the opening on 7 June for Making Worlds (Biennale 2009), the the most visited art show in Italy (10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Giardini closed on Mondays, Arsenale on Tuesdays) LAST DAYS for the 53rd International Art Exhibition (Biennale of Arti Visive/Biennale of Visual Arts) in Venice until 22 November 2009. Besides the Giardini and the Arsenale exhibition venues, many other locations in the city. The National Participations are this year amounting to the record number of 77 Nations participating including first-time participations of Montenegro, Principality of Monaco, Republic of Gabon, Union of Comoros, and United Arab Emirates. Furthermore there is a record number of Collateral Events, proposed by international organizations and institutions, which will organize their own exhibitions and initiatives in Venice during the occasion.
You may remember a series of children books dedicated to a young "detective", Nancy Drew. She's back in a videogame, which offers a new perspective to discover Venice, 360 degrees.
In "Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice," from Her Interactive for the PC, Nancy has been invited to help the Italian police solve a series of crimes where priceless Venetian artifacts have been stolen. Set against the beautiful backdrop of Venice, as depicted in almost photo-realistic scenes, the mystery takes you around the city, letting you ride on gondolas to get from place to place. You play as Nancy and see Venice through her eyes. The game uses point-and-click navigation, with several of the scenes allowing you to look in 360-degree views by placing your cursor at the edge of the screen. The book which inspired the videogame is PHANTOM OF VENICE (NANCY DREW 78): PHANTOM OF VENICE (Nancy Drew).
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