Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection looking at the art she collected after she moved to Venice in 1948. The first section looked at the 1848 Biennale where she took over the Greece Pavilion which was the first show of a modern art collection in post war Europe and her Jackson Pollock show at Museo Correr which was the first Pollock show in Europe. It was lovely that they had so many great Pollocks form the show here but the space was too small for such large pictures. From her early days in the Palazzo on the Grand Canal Peggy established the idea of exhibitions in the space with a show of 20 pieces of contemporary sculpture, a few of which were shown here along with archive material from the show. The show included work she bought from British artists including the dramatic Graham Sutherland shown here and a Bacon of a chimpanzee. There was also a fascinating room of kinetic and optical art works which really messed with your eyes. What was a...

Interesting exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice giving an overview of art in Italy in the 1960s. The show began by defining to imagine as “to form a mental image” and each gallery shows how a different artist used research to inform their thinking. Well I think that’s what it was but I just found it a collection of not particularly attractive work from an era I’m not that interested in in terms of art. Sorry! I was interested in the idea that when Italian artists looked to do pop art some of them turned to their artists past rather than the contemporary consumer culture so I liked Giovetta Fioroni’s take on the Botticelli “Birth of Venus”. I liked Domenico Gnoli’s big square pictures focusing in on sections of clothing like a great zoom lens so just showing the shoulder of a suit or collar of a dress. I also liked his bed pictures with the shadows of the bodies in them.   Also Michelangelo Pistoletto’s work on Plexiglass was fun and I loved his...