Venice - Day Two - Far away places

On our second day we visited two exhibitions that are relatively distant from the center of Venice. First was the Golden-Lion-winning Lithuanian Pavilion, Sun and Sea (Marina) which is across the island from the Arsenal, probably not that far walking, but we chose to find the closest vaporetto stop, Celestia, only a couple of blocks from the site. We went on Wednesday, thinking there wouldn’t be too much of a crown, and indeed the line was not long, and we waited about 20 minutes. When we left, about noon, there was no line at all. The pavilion is in a military installation, with signs warning visitors to stay on the path. Inside, we heard ethereal singing and climbed out to a balcony surrounding the scene of people on a fictive beach, complete with balls, chairs toys, books, and everything one associates with a well populated seaside. As all the reviews say, the beach occupants sing arias and choruses about a variety of beach experiences, some pleasant, some terrible, and some both at once. I thought the work should be presented as a one-act opera, which is what it really is, and I would be happy to see it again in that context. It was dark. Although I could understand much of the singing, which was in English, I wanted to follow in the libretto, but it was not easy to see it and there weren’t enough chairs for everyone. So I read ahead and we left before it was over. Tom and I both liked it very much.

Our next stop was the installation by Edmund de Waal, Psalm, in the Jewish Museum in the Venice Ghetto. To get there we took the Number 2 vaporetto the rest of the way around the island, passing residential and industrial areas we had never seen before, plus the cruise ship docks and the bus terminal. Just outside the ghetto we stopped in a nondescript restaurant and had a wonderful lunch, surrounded by locals and Asian tourists.

The Ghetto was established in 1516, and the word ghetto comes from there. I had been in the ghetto before, but had not visited the museum, which is a fascinating  combination of memorials to former residents, objects associated with services, historical materials, and a the beautiful, richly appointed sixteenth-century Canton Scuola synagogue, which, not being Jewish or members,  we could only view from windows. De Waal installed his works in rooms and a corridor near the synagogue. They consist of various sizes of wall display cases, shelves or pedestals with white porcelain cylinders of various sizes and shapes, box forms that may also be porcelain, and gold leaf. No matter how one looks, it is impossible to see all the forms completely as they are set in front of each other with just glimpses visible. His work reminds me of the Zen garden at Ryoan-ji, where no matter where you sit you cannot see all the stones. I want to be profoundly moved by these installations, but it doesn’t happen. I loved The Hare with Amber Eyes and found it very moving. I wish his works of art had the same effect.

My photographs are inadequate; going to de Waal’s website provides better images.

De Waal also did an installation at the Ateneo Veneto, with shelves on which he put both his porcelains and almost 2000 books by exiled writers, mostly in translation, which visitors were encouraged to take down and read, as well as lists of lost and erased libraries in the world. We did not go to that part, which I regret because the concept is so powerful. At the same time, I’m very grateful that he led us to the ghetto and the museum there. In several locations in the ghetto there were posted copies of a Wall Street Journal article about the place and its synagogues, with information on tours.


We headed back toward our hotel, getting off the vaporetto at San Zaccaria and stopping at a few sites we’ve visited in the past: the church of Santa Maria della Pieta, with a collateral installation, Processional by California artist ToddWilliamson, and, in a nearby building, rooms holding the Andorra, Zimbabwe, and San Marino Pavilions. The Todd Williamson installation is in a side corridor, called a chapel in the information. It includes paintings, a recorded musical composition, Nocturne, by Greg Walter from the University of North Carolina, and five bronze panels with inspirational quotations by famous people in Latin, with casually placed translations on a chair in the corridor. The abstract paintings are rich and strong. I found the combination of music and paintings surprisingly moving, although I wondered about the inspirational quotations in that context. Maybe he’s trying to say that good things can be said by the strangest people. The church, of course, is known as Vivaldi’s home church.  Here are one of the paintings and two of the panels:

No dream is too big/ No challenge is too great

Nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach

You know you are on the road to success

 if you would do your job and not be paid for it.

Did they really say those things? Sounds a bit like Jenny Holzer.... 

There were five quotation panels in all. I liked Elan Musk’s especially: “It’s okay to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.” It sounded like him and it sounded like a reasonable idea. I’m hopeful that the Trump quotation will hold true for me in the 2020 election. And I thought Oprah was forgetting all the people who do what they love for nothing because they can’t get paid for it and those who don’t get paid adequately for what they do.

We enjoyed the Zimbabwe Pavilion. The attendant there was from Zimbabwe and when we suggested that Venice must be quite foreign to him, he said the biggest wild animal he had seen in Venice was a pigeon! The pavilion has the title Soko Risina Musoro, which I learned is the title of an epic poem written by Zimbabwean NationalistHerbert Chitepo, translated as The Tale Without a Head. I cannot find the date when the poem was written, but Chitepo was born in 1923 and assassinated in 1975. Four artists are shown there, two men and two women. I particularly liked Georgina Maxim’s fiber works, large, beautifully colored, and densely packed

Georgina Maxim, Mai Mugari I, textile mixed media, 2019

, and I was taken by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami’s large abstracted representational images derived from her own family and from Southern African life. 

Kudzanai Violet Hwami, Jovian Swirl, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2019

 Neville Starling’s photograph- based works made very effective reference to his father’s Alzheimer’s memory loss and to the idea of memory loss altogether. 

Neville Starling, White Lies, multimedia

Cosmas Shiridzinomwa’s large paintings, titled Fruitless Discussions and Violent Discussions express their ideas through twisted tables and chairs with hands. 

Cosmas Shiridzinomwa, Fruitless Discussions I, oil on canvas, 2013

We were disappointed with the Andorra Pavilion, which had been one of our favorites in 2017. (Sorry, I have to skip some things.) And we were puzzled that the San Marino Pavilion displayed Chinese artists, which I now understaSnd is a result of something they call a Friendship Project International. One of them was Xu De Qi, whose Beauty and the Beast series I found particularly unappealing. 

Xu De Qi, Beauty and the Beast

Another, Cheng Chengwei, displayed beautifully crafted hyperrealist images that somehow felt disturbing and politically charged by just depicting a man and a woman. 

Chen Chenwei, Series on the Republic of China, Shadows in the Moonlight, oil on canvas, 2014

And a San Marino artist, Martina Conti, apparently enlisted members of Parliament to pose for her photographs.

 This gives some sense of the diversity of experiences one has trying to see what's on view among the hundreds of offerings during the Biennale, and it's only the second day, before we actually attended the central two venues.