Cathy's Art Diary

Comprehensive online lecture from the National Gallery on Tintoretto focusing on the work he did for the scuole of Venice. Sian Walters began by explaining how scuole were confraternities based on a shared nationality, trade or religious devotion. She outlined the work Tintoretto did for various scuole before concentrating on his work at the Scuola San Rocco. She explained how he got the job in a competition but instead of drawing his submission he painted it and had a friend insert it on the ceiling of the main chamber and giving it to the scuola. How could they turn him down. She then took us though some of the images explaining how innovative the iconography and style was. She finished by talking about how the scheme was received and the recent restoration project. I’m going to Venice later this year and can’t wait to see it again.

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  

Fascinating exhibition at the Academia Gallery in Venice recreating the ceiling Giorgio Vasari painted for Palazzo Corner Spinelli. Over the last 40 years the gallery has been acquiring the nine panels shown here which were shown together in a new display   which will enter the permanent museum itinerary in a dedicated hall. It was being shown with two short videos about how it had been recreated and installed. I would have liked to know a bit more about where all the panels had been acquired and where they had been. No end date given unveiled 28 August 2024

Charming installation at the Academia Gallery in Venice of Murano glass over the last hundred years. The pieces by over 100 makers was set out on a long banquet table in front of Veronese’s “Feast at the House of Levi” which features 16th century glass at a biblical banquet. There were some beautiful pieces, some reflecting the styles in the painting, and some more modern pieces. My favourite was this wine glass with no stem with nestles in another vessel when you put it down. Closed 3 November 2024

Eclectic exhibition and national pavilions at the Venice Biennale on the Giardini site. I deliberately went straight to the British pavilion as I knew it was a video installation by John Akomfrah and I wanted to have time to watch it properly. It was well worth doing as there were about seven rooms with layered videos blending new and archive material which each echoed each other in a poetic way. Each room was set up in a different format which made them more varied to watch. I then did the large curated pavilion where Evelyn Taocheng Wang's delicate paintings and Fred Kuwarni's video "We Were Here" looking at how black figure appear in history were the highlights. I'll definitely be looking that one up to see it I can watch the whole thing online. I loved a room which paired two gay artists Louis Fratino and Filippo de Pisis with gentle domestic works. The national pavilions have rather merged in my mind since going and seemed less distinctive than usual. ...

Vibrant  exhibition and national pavilions at the Venice Biennale starting with the Arsenale site. Generally I found the Biennale much more cheerful and life affirming than some previous occasions.   Although it still tackled difficult subjects it tended to present them as joy following hard times and the power of people acting together. As ever I   started with the curated section and shout outs go to Kiluanji Kia Hendra's views through railings shown with the railings themselves, Omar Mismar's mosaics, a wonderful indigo structure and Bochra Khalili's video installation of maps of migrant journeys. One criticism however would be that there seemed to be   a lot of art which wasn't contemporary and I expect it to be a contemporary art showcase. I think the aim was to fill gaps from the past along the theme of the show of "Foreigners Everywhere". The second moan is the length of the labels and the very small font used. A lot of space was taken up with tel...

Lovely exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of 18th century drawings of Venice. The show as a whole built a sense of the city at the time which was then, as now, a magnet for visitors from carnival figures, through scenes of the Grand Canal, portraits of characters and records of interior design. I loved a small drawing by Pietro Antonio Novelli of a gnocchi seller. I’d not known that the Friday before lent was called Gnocchi Friday and Punchinello figures like this sold them in the streets. I also liked the tiny watercolours of the Grand Canal on blue paper like postcards. My favourite work was a picture of the church by the Rialto by Canaletto which looked just like it does now. I struck up a lovely conversation with the gentleman next to me about where the fish market was in relation to it. Closes 11 February 2024  

Delightful online lecture from ARTscapades looking at the city and art of Venice. The author Martin Gayford, wo has written a book of the same title as the talk, started with a photograph of the interior of San Zaccaria, which I know well, and set up the idea of it showing layers of time, the time it look to paint the walls and the great Bellini altarpiece, the time since, the time we take to look at it and the time it took to take the picture and that the city is like this too.    It was a novel way of looking at the art of the city. He had wonderful photos and mainly covered familiar paintings but he added a layer of thinking about the city itself and its architecture as a picture too. He also pointed out that a lot of histories of the city end with Napoleon whereas the city has continued to inspire artists and how with the Biennale it has become a centre of interchange for the contemporary art world. I can’t wait to read the book before the next trip to the city and ...

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery looking at the architecture of Venice as represented by the paintings of Canaletto. I must admit from the title and description I thought the talk was going to be wider ranging and look at how artists had used a variety of cities whereas in fact it just looked at Venice. That being said, Oliver Garland took us on tour of the city via the paintings of Canaletto describing the buildings and their structure. I thought I knew a lot about the city but learnt a lot from this talk particularly about the materials that were used and why they were used. I had never realised before that all the palaces where built around four principle spine walls and that facades had no load bearing function to keep the weight spread over the foundations. This meant the façade could have lots of windows and could be adapted and updated easily. This was a nice nostalgic hour imagining a walk round the city and learning a bit more about the place.

Insightful online lecture/discussion from the Victoria and Albert Museum on how the tombs for the Doges reflect their history. Toto Bergamo Rossi, head of Venetian Heritage and the author of a book of the same title as the lecture, and Bruce Boucher from the Sir John Soane Museum, took us through the tombs of the Doges in chronological order. I’m pleased to say, as a frequent visitor to the city, I recognise most of them. It was a bit of a whirl wind overview but there were great illustrations and it built an interesting narrative. The talk also fit in well with a recent course I’d done on sculpture after Donatello. I liked their descriptions of the pieces and how they relate to one another within churches.

Small but perfectly formed exhibition at the British Museum looking at the print trade in Venice around 1500. The show centred around Barbari’s ambitious map of Venice from 1500 which the museum has a copy of. I always love seeing this print and it was lovely to be able to get up close and study the detail. Other exhibits then looked at more work by Barbari and his successors. It discussed how Leonardo da Vinci and Durer both visited the city around this time and how this influence prints in the city and how the prints influenced their work. The show included a print by Mercantino Raimondi copying a print by Durer that sparked a copyright law case which resulted in a ban on anyone else using Durer’s monogram. It was a fascinating picture of the artists and print trade in the city in this period. As ever in shows by the British Museum Print Room the commentary was excellent and clearly written. Closes 21 May 2023    

Useful online lecture from the National Gallery looking at art in Renaissance Venice. Sian Walters gave a good overview of the main themes in art in the city as a taster for an upcoming course either in Italian cities or one of their stories of art courses. She mainly concentrated on the emergence of secular art in the city from portraits, though great city scenes and to how art was used as propaganda. She did also touch on religious art mentioning Titian’s “Assumption of the Virgin” which I always have to go and see when I’m in the city. I love the city and have been there often so there wasn’t a lot that was new to me in the talk but I did learn that only 5% of the lagoon is deeper than 5m which is why it is so easy to defend.

Interesting online lecture from the Wallace Collection using their collection of Canaletto’s to explore why visitors went to Venice in the 18th century and what pictures they bought when they were there. Leila Parker from the gallery explained how Venice was a hub for tourists on the Grand Tour who came for the spectacle of the architecture and the pageants. She outlined some of the annual events such as Ascension Day when the Doge, on his ceremonial barge, sailed out to the edge of the sea and threw in a ring to symbolise the marriage of the city and the sea. She then used the paintings to take us on a tour of the city showing the main sites which tourists, then as now, wanted a record of.  

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  

Fascinating and dramatic exhibition at Palazzo Grimani in Venice reconstructing a collection of antique sculpture that has previously been in this particular space after 400 years.   I’d read an excellent article in Apollo Magazine about the bringing together of these sculptures so was delighted to be able to see it. In the palazzo there is an amazing, vaulted room which has housed much of the collection of Giovanni Grimaldi which has ended up in a section the Musee Correr which was being refurbished. While this has been happening they have been moved back to their original home. Here’s hoping they stay. It is a stunning collection but is somewhat mugged by the splendour of the room. With its amazing, coffered ceiling with a 2nd century Ganymede and an eagle soaring up into it. It was hard to focus on the amazing works below. Its power was more in its whole effect that the composite parts. Closes 27 November 2022  

Effective  exhibition at Palazzo Grimani in Venice of new work by Georg Baselitz. The work had been done in response to the city which I found amusing as the last time I saw an exhibition of Baselitz’s work was at the Accademia. In particular there were twelve paintings made expressly for the Sala del Portego, which hung on eighteenth-century stucco-framed panels. They were bright and decorative almost like posh wallpaper. In the side rooms were more classic Baselitz style upside down figures which played with the space. My favourites were the two shown here which were thick black reliefs and yes, the photo is the right way up. Closed 17 November 2022

Quirky outdoor sculpture exhibition in the Marinaressa Gardens in Venice of contemporary work organised by the European Cultural Centre. This is the sixth time this show has happening in line with Biennales and I have seen art least one before and they are always fun. The first garden I came to had a mix of artists. I liked Karen McCoy’s structure made of hazelnut branches with things growing inside. Also   Vivianne Duchini’s interlocking horses’ heads and  Naja Utzon Popov’s work referencing the Australian bushfires. The second garden had large, bright, angular animals by Richard Orlinski which dominated and brightened the space. Who doesn’t love a giant red gorilla! Closes 27 November 2022  

Beautiful but confusing exhibition at Gallerie Accademia in Venice of glass sculptures by Ritsue Mishima. I say confusing because there seemed to be no commentary with the pieces. I note the show had been attended and there was building work going on so I wondered if labels had disappeared. Reading the advert outside I realised the work was reacting to the Canova sculpture it was shown with and a line of beautiful pieces on a mirrored surface represented her response to Venice. Even though I didn’t know the above at the time I saw the pieces, I found then beautiful and sympathetic in the space. The line of 15 works on the mirror worked well and some reminded me of fossils. However I think my favourites were the small pieces she called Meteorites which rejected the space and colours around them. Closes 27 November 2022  

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  

Claustrophobic exhibition at Punta Della Dogana in Venice of new work by Bruce Nauman. I love the exhibition spaces at Punta della Dogana but this show made it feel cramped and disorientating. Sadly, as quite often in this space, the art is mugged my the amazing views from the windows of the city outside full of life and colour. The show mainly consisted of large and small videos of him walking. I particularly liked the ones where the body was broken up like a sequential consequences drawing to give the contrapposto pose of the title. The last work you see was almost the best superimposing a life size figure of him on one of the walking videos so you wonder if he is actually in the space. Closes 27 November 2022