Cathy's Art Diary

Baffling exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi of work by abstract artist Julie Mehretu.   I’ve seen Megretu’s work before at White Cube and been baffled by it and here, seeing it on mass, I’m afraid it didn’t make a lot more sense to me. Her work is based on a print, drawing of expanded photograph which she then layers with marks and paint. I’m afraid my mind tries to see the original image through the layers and I don’t think that is the point. The friend I was with likened then to late Turner’s. I was more drawn to the work of her friends which was shown with her pictures, my favourite being the sculptures by Paul Pfeiffer. Closes 6 January 2024  

Tender exhibition at Pallazo Grassi in Venice of work by Marlene Dumas. Spread over two floors, the work was sparsely hung which gave it room to breathe. Rather than labels you were given an excellent booklet with explanations of the work. At first glance the work looks rough and unfinished but the more you look at it the finer it becomes and, particularly the portraits, show great draftsmanship and insight. My favourites were a series of drawings of gay men who’d faced persecution from Oscar Wilde to Justin Fashenu. Each had a short explanation of their story. I also loved this picture of naked women from behind based on an old photograph of nudists. I felt they looked like they were having fun. Closes 8 January 2023  

Fascinating exhibition at Palazzo Grassi o, a retrospective of the work of the painter Luc Tuymans. I loved these paintings which looked like out of focus photographs which gave an ethereal, wistful effect. My favourites were the ones which looked at the close detail of something such as showing a wax seal and another looking at the surface of brocade. They mirrored the way I often look at the surface and detail of paintings in in this case I ended up looking at the detail of a detail. A lot of the work was responding to 20th century German history and the current rise of right wing groups. This sometimes gave quite beautiful pictures a sinister edge such as “Walk” which looked like a slightly Lowry like scene of people walking in a park from above but turned out to be based on a photograph of Nazi dignitaries strolling around Berchtesgarden.   There are also some lovely portraits which turn out to be of Nazi leaders or a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. The leaflet for ...

Retrospective exhibition at Pallazzo Grassi of work by Sigmar Polke. I had been to the Tate Modern show a few years ago and not really liked Polke but this show gave the pictures a bit more room to breathe and I understand them better and really liked some of them. I’m not sure I really appreciated the skill in the dot pictures before and that he painted on each dot or sometimes the space between the dots to create a pale one, creating an image purely from these dots. The most effective ones here were the Hermes Trismegistos series. I loved some later works created by putting powdered pigment on a canvas then shaking them and adding water. They became a homage to pigment with wonderful organic shapes in the paint. There was a great film at the start showing Polke working on one of these works although as my friend pointed out we were literally watching a film of paint drying! There were also three films Polke made while working on the German Pavilion at the 1986 Bienn...

Exhibition of contemporary works from the Francois Pinault Collection at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice timed to coincide with the Biennale. I found the whole thing a bit precious after the Biennale. Each artist had their own white room and rather officious guard. I loved the series of identical black and white painted self portraits by Rudolf Stingel. Marlene Dumas homage to the Holbein picture of Christ in the tomb and a gently loving cigarette packet but I can’t now trace who that was by. The exhibition included the skull made up of tin cans outside on the Grand Canal by Subo Guptadh. Francois Pinault, the French owner of department stores as well as Christie's, Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, owns an 80% share in the Palazzo Grassi as a venue for displaying his collection. Photos from the Daily Telegraph