Cathy's Art Diary

Stunning exhibition at San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice of new work by Ai Weiwei. The centrepiece was an enormous installation of a chandelier like piece made up of bones and body parts in black glass. It looked magnificent in the space. I loved the vistas you got through it and around it. Weiwei has evidently been working with glass workers in Murano for three years to create this piece and other smaller works in the show. In other parts of the abbey there were new pictures in Lego by Weiwei. I’d not realised he’d branched out into this new medium. They look rather pop art but are very effective. There were the amazing black and white ones based on photos of him breaking pots but by favourite was a Lego   version of Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”. Closes 27 November 2022  

Luxurious exhibition at Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice of glass designed by Viennese architects in the first half of the 20th century. These architects worked with manufacturers to produce these lovely objects. Even in the first case I fell in love with a cylindrical decanter by Adolf Loos. The show was presented against wall paper contemporary to the time. There was a lovely section on patriotic pieces made during the First World War and I liked a glass with the flags of Germany and Austria around it. Also a nice recreation of Hoffman’s glass room at the 1937 Paris exhibition called Boudoir D’une Grade Vedette, with panels of silvered wood. I fell for some lovely series such Patrician by Hoffman and Ambassador by Haerdtl which I believe are still made! Closes on 31 July 2016.

Beautiful installation   at Officina dell’Arte Spirituale, Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice of new work by Antonio Girbes. Girbes uses large photos of architectural elements displayed in a bent format to represent architectural form. The commentary says he is trying to create a place to take refuge from   the business of modern society. I loved Agora based on Palladian architecture produced for this show. Also a painted ceiling shown like a kaleidoscope of colour. All the pictures were shown in this dark space which concentrated the eye on the image and its shape. Less architectural was a long picture of tress in a wood which reminded me of the Bill Viola video in the Botticelli exhibition at the V&A and the large David Hockney pictures of trees. Closes on 31 August 2016.

Interesting installation at Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice by Lin Utzon. The work consisted of two large murals either ends of a large room of organic shapes, one with black painted on white and one with white on black. In the middle of the room was a large procession of black and white ceramic pots and in the corner was a pile of broken white post which looked as if the pots in the middle had come out of them. I saw it was being about migration however it was based on a quote by Albert Einstein “Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” It just shows that we can all take different things from a work of art. Either way it was beautiful! I love this growth in ceramics as an art form. Closes on 18 September 2016