Venice is a vibrant city. Between a break for a coffee or a spritz, there is always something to see or do
There are many cultural offerings in the city, including art galleries and extraordinary exhibitions, in addition to the Architecture Biennale. Venezia da Vivere’s selection begins with a journey through five locations that we have visited for you and suggest for a Venetian itinerary.
San Polo – Palazzo Vendramin Grimani
After a two-year restoration, the Fondazione dell’Albero d’Oro offers free admission (bookable online) to Palazzo Vendramin Grimani, the elegant historic residence on the Grand Canal that was owned by Doge Pietro Grimani in the 18th century.
Four guided tours are scheduled daily (at 10 AM, 11:30 AM, 2 PM, and 3:30 PM), lasting nearly an hour. The exhibition route through the rooms of the first noble floor reveals the history of the building and the families who lived there. On display are works from important private collections and previously unpublished photographs—specially commissioned—by Patrick Tourneboeuf, which document the restoration of the palace before and after the works.
At the end of the itinerary, watercolors by French painter Yvan Salomone (Saint-Malo, 1957) are exhibited. They depict the architecture of port areas in seaside cities as places where the city ends, rather than spaces leading toward the immense expanse of water, which is intentionally excluded.
In the ground floor entrance hall leading to the exit of the exhibition route, the photographic project Invisibilia by Venetian artist Ugo Carmeni is presented: a macro reinterpretation of decorative details from the palace’s 16th-century facade.
Castello – TBA21-Academy
For its tenth anniversary, TBA21–Academy, the organization promoting a deep relationship with the oceans through the lens of contemporary art, presents two exhibitions at Ocean Space in the Church of San Lorenzo.
The second chapter of Territorial Agency: Oceans in Transformation, curated by Daniela Zyman, and the first solo exhibition in Europe by artist Taloi Havini with The Soul Expanding Ocean #1: Taloi Havini curated by Chus Martínez, who is also the curator of Ocean Space for the 2021-22 biennium.
The Soul Expanding Ocean #1: Taloi Havini is the first exhibition in Europe by the artist born in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, in the southwestern Pacific. Her work, spanning sculpture, cinematography, photography, and immersive audiovisual installations, addresses research themes on habitats and the nature of Oceania, as well as cutting-edge mapping studies investigating how sound and the senses can be used as tools for measuring space.
The exhibition Territorial Agency: Oceans in Transformation, on view until August 29, 2021, and also open during the Architecture Biennale, represents the second chapter of a series on themes and questions regarding the complex processes of the Earth’s oceans during the Anthropocene.
San Marco – TITANS: A Dialogue Between Materials, Space, and Time
TITANS is the first major exhibition of sculptures by Wallace Chan in Venice. A tribute to the multidisciplinary Chinese artist, it is curated by James Putnam and hosted in the splendid Fondaco Marcello, overlooking the Grand Canal.
Online, via a virtual tour showing the exhibition spaces, interviews with the artist and a preview of the new film by award-winning director Martina Margaux Cozzi are available. The film is dedicated to Chan’s extraordinary life and work, including behind-the-scenes content from the exhibition, which is open to the public until October 31.
Giudecca – Mario De Biasi. Photographs 1947-2003 at Casa dei Tre Oci
Considered an explorer of worlds near and far, Mario De Biasi is a witness to 20th-century history. Until January 9, 2022, his famous photographs are on display at Casa dei Tre Oci in a comprehensive retrospective covering the period from 1947 to 2003.
Many iconic shots are included, such as those taken in 1954 for the photo-romance weekly Bolero Film, featuring a stunning Moira Orfei dressed in white walking through central Milan and drawing the gaze of a group of men, or the sexy Brigitte Bardot posing for photojournalists lying on the grass during the Venice Film Festival at the Lido in 1957.
Cannaregio – The new Spazio Berlendis
To coincide with the Architecture Biennale and the celebrations for the 1600th anniversary of the founding of Venice, Spazio Berlendis by Emanuela Fadalti and Matilde Cadenti opened on June 5 in the former carpentry workshop of Squero Fassi—one of the oldest in Venice—with the exhibition “Rincontrarsi a Venice.”
300 square meters of exhibition space for a journey through eight internationally renowned artists: Francesco Candeloro, Maurizio Donzelli, Maurizio Pellegrin, Fabrizio Plessi, Ferdinando Scianna, João Vilhena, Francesca Woodman, and Toots Zynsky. This was achieved in collaboration with several Venetian galleries (Alberta Pane, Beatrice Burati Anderson Art Space & Gallery, Caterina Tognon, La Galleria di Dorothea Van der Koelen, Ikona, Marignana Arte, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Victoria Miro), which participated in the project by presenting works by one of their artists.
The exhibition is accompanied by a text by philosopher Jonathan Molinari.
The article is by Lucia Pecoraro.
