Venice and the Autumn Exhibitions

Palazzo Grassi has become a large workshop, open to the public free of charge. Every Wednesday on the second floor, visitors can watch the restorers at work thanks to Strappi, the meticulous restoration of two large 19th-century frescoes painted by Carlo Innocenzo Carloni, which adorned the Palazzo until the 1980s.

The workshop installation is designed by the Venetian studio Zaven of Enrica Cavarzan and Marco Zavagno, who have created airy and luminous spaces designed for the organizational functionality of the restorers’ work and the movement of visitors. Zaven’s characteristic touch is color: yellow for the flooring inspired by restoration materials and silver for the furniture covering where tools and materials are stored. The clothing was also designed by the Zaven duo, who explain: “white with silver details, as if they were actors in a theatrical performance taking place on this yellow stage, with their slow, repetitive, and precise gestures.”

On the first floor of Palazzo Grassi, until January 9, 2022, HYPERVENEZIA continues, the solo exhibition of urban photography on Venice by Mario Peliti.

And until January 2022 there is Gestus, the first exhibition project designed for the spaces of the Teatrino at Palazzo Grassi, curated by Video Sound Art. A collective of video works, installations, performances, and choral actions by international artists, selected for their exploration of body language as a driver of physical and mental dynamics, to be deconstructed and recomposed, giving rise to utopias and chaos.

The exhibition unfolds in two parts with the same format: two artists, accompanied by a chorus of performers. The first appointment, Gestus I act: Remaking the Body in October, featured Enrique Ramirez and Luca Trevisani, accompanied by Caterina Gobbi and Andrea Di Lorenzo.

The second appointment is Gestus II act: The Montage of Actions, open to the public. From Wednesday, December 1 to Saturday, January 15, 2022, we will witness the creation of works by Ludovica Carbotta and Driant Zeneli and the performances by Ludovica Carbotta with Benedetta Barzini (December 1), Annamaria Ajmone (December 4) and Driant Zeneli (January 15).

At Punta della Dogana, until November 27, 2022, there is the major exhibition dedicated to the American artist and Golden Lion winner at the Venice Biennale in 2009, Bruce Nauman. Curated by Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Caroline Bourgeois, curator at the Pinault Collection, Bruce Nauman: Contrapposto Studies is part of an unprecedented exhibition journey featuring video installations of historical works—including “Contrapposto Studies, I through VII,” 2015/16, “Walks In Walks Out,” 2015, “Contrapposto Split,” 2017, and “Walking a Line,” 2019—alongside more recent works, some of which have never been exhibited in Europe.

Venetia 1600 and Evening Openings

Until March 25, 2022 at Palazzo Ducale, the exhibition Venetia 1600. Births and Rebirths is underway, curated by Robert Echols, Frederick Ilchman, Gabriele Matino, and Andrea Bellieni.

A journey through over 250 works to celebrate 1600 years of Venice, which “speaks of a city that has regenerated itself”—explains Gabriela Belli, scientific director—”fighting external enemies and internal difficulties, such as fires, floods, or plague. A city that at every moment of difficulty has been able to respond by bringing improvements and that, in addition to rebuilding its architectural beauties, has managed to renew, each time, its social and economic organization.”

Making the appointment at the Civic Museums even more special will be the extraordinary evening opening on Friday, December 3, Saturday, December 4, Sunday, December 5, Monday, December 6, and Tuesday, December 7, 2021 of Palazzo Ducale and the Museo Correr until 11 PM with last entry at 10 PM.

The 17th Architecture Biennale

There is time until Sunday, November 21, 2021 to see the 17th International Architecture Exhibition and visit the winning pavilion of the 2021 Golden Lion from the United Arab Emirates at the Arsenale.

How will we live together? is curated by architect, professor, and researcher Hashim Sarkis and marked a very important moment for Venice: the message of recovery with major international in-person events.

Important events followed that made people talk about Venice and showed a city always ready to welcome and inspire the entire world.

Expectations are high for the next Biennale appointment, which reopens in 2022 (from April 23 to November 27) with The Milk of Dreams, the 59th International Art Exhibition led for the first time by an Italian woman: the Milanese curator Cecilia Alemani, Chief Curator of High Line Art in New York.

Ancient and Contemporary at the Palace

Extraordinary discoveries from five hundred years ago and site-specific works at the Museo di Palazzo Grimani near Santa Maria Formosa. Two major exhibitions: Domus Grimani 1594-2019 and Archinto by German artist Georg Baselitz, until November 27, 2022.

The first exhibition is the result of a lengthy restoration, carried out by Unisve with the support of Fondazione Venetian Heritage, Soprintendenza ABAP for the Municipality of Venice and the Lagoon, of the restoration of the 16th-century rooms of the Palace.

An interesting detail has resurfaced in the Sala di Psiche: a magnificent bas-relief in soft Vicenza stone of a salamander among flames at the base of a large fireplace. A dragon, a symbol like the Phoenix of the power to rise from one’s own ashes.

The curators Daniele Ferrara, Director of the Regional Directorate of Veneto Museums, and Toto Bergamo Rossi, Director of Venetian Heritage, thanks to a careful study of historical sources dating back to Giovanni Grimani’s will and late 19th-century photographs recently discovered in the National Gallery of Washington archives, have given a precise destination to twenty sculptures among the Sala del Doge, the vestibule, the Camerino di Callisto, and the Sala di Psiche.

At the same time, Archinto is on display, the solo exhibition curated by Mario Codognato and produced by Gagosian in collaboration with Fondazione Venetian Heritage, featuring 12 new works by Georg Baselitz, some of which were created expressly for the Sala del Portego and inserted into the 18th-century stucco frames, where the portraits of the Grimani family were placed until the 19th century.

“It is a tribute to Venice.“—says the curator—The title of the exhibition and its works refer to the enigmatic portrait of Cardinal Filippo Archinto that Titian created in 1558, characterized by a dense brushstroke that blurs the figure with the background“.

The Symbols of Command and Campigli’s Works

It is an interesting art exhibition curated by the Fondazione Giancarlo Ligabue in collaboration with the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris, at ACP–Palazzo Franchetti.

Until March 13, 2022, you can embark on a journey beyond the world, to Oceania, to discover command staffs, symbols of authority, and learn about their sculptural beauty and profound meaning.

Extended until January 16, 2022 in the rooms of the piano nobile of Palazzo Franchetti is the exhibition curated by Martina Corgnati of the deliberately archaizing compositions of painter Massimo Campigli, represented by paintings ranging from 1928 to 1966, deeply inspired by Etruscan art in atmosphere, signs, and colors.

Photographs 1947-2003

At Casa dei Tre Oci, a major retrospective titled Mario De Biasi. Photographs 1947-2003 is underway, dedicated to one of the greatest Italian photographers, Mario De Biasi.

The exhibition traces the entire production of the photojournalist, from the beginnings of his collaboration with Epoca magazine to his last works, open to the public until January 9, 2022. It is curated by Enrica Viganò in collaboration with the Mario De Biasi Archive, organized by Civita Tre Venezie with Admira and promoted by Fondazione di Venezia.

Arte Laguna Prize

Until November 21, 2021 in the spaces of the Arsenale Nord in Venice, the collective exhibition promoted by Arte Laguna Prize is on display.

The exhibition, which has become biennial, presents the finalists of the 14th and 15th editions with 240 works on display from around the world to celebrate the 15 years of the competition, founded in 2006 by the Associazione Culturale MoCA of Venice.

SPRING BOX #01

Pilot episode titled SPRING BOX #01 curated by Margherita Morgantin for the young art gallery Beatrice Burati Anderson, in Corte Petriana near Campo San Polo. Sounds, air, natural substances, writings, and voices are the research path, constructed in almost total absence of images, of the two emerging artists Izabela Bardhoshi and Tatiana Stropkaiová, on display until November 27.

Impressions de Venise

15 artists and more than 50 works on display in the first traveling exhibition dedicated to graphic art curated by Garance & Marion: from October 14 to 24, 2021 in Santa Croce at the Scuola dei Laneri, Salizada San Pantalon 131/A; from November 18 to 28, 2022 in Castello at Fondamenta Sant’Anna 996; from December 9 to 19, 2021 in San Polo in a private residence.

On display will also be the screen prints by Mattia Caracciolo, Giulia Serafin, and Arianna Anda created in the Fallani studio, recently authors of an artistic poster project, Linea 1. An original and playful journey between past and present: thanks to a small QR code, you are in the company of historical figures and events that, through stories and curiosities, have marked the life of the Serenissima.

Nigerian Art Inspired by Venice

At Akka Project, the art gallery that promotes young African artists, the solo exhibition by Nigerian artist Kelechi Nwaneri, Through my eyes, is underway until December 4, 2021, the result of a period spent in Venice, thanks to the Artist Residency project organized by the gallery.

The works on display reflect the artist’s stay in the city with the Pirandellian theme of the mask and the concept of symbiosis between man and his surrounding environment. Also on display is a series of portraits of the artist himself created by Lisa Pujatti, an IUAV student who served as assistant and guide to Kelechi during his Venetian stay.

Beyond Art Exhibitions, Events in the City

Venezia Jazz Festival

The autumn edition of the Venezia Jazz Festival continues with offerings both in Venice and on the mainland. Appointment Saturday, November 6 at 7:30 PM in the Sale Apollinee of Teatro La Fenice for Totem, the group composed of Ferdinando Romano—double bass, Tommaso Iacoviello—trumpet and flugelhorn, Simone Alessandrini—alto and soprano sax, Nazareno Caputo—vibraphone, Manuel Magrini—piano, and Giovanni Paolo Liguori—drums.

VeneziaInDanza2021

XIII edition of VeneziainDanza 2021 at Teatro Malibran, the festival directed by Michela Barasciutti that brings the world premiere of the festival with Io Maria, Lei Callas, a show produced by Točnadanza and Camerata Musicale Barese in tribute to “La Divina” on the centenary of her birth. The appointments are:
– Saturday, November 6, 2021 at 8 PM and Sunday, November 7, 2021 at 5:30 PM with TALENTI DE L’OPERA DE PARIS. Purchase ticket
– Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 8 PM with CENERENTOLA. Purchase ticket

The article is by Lucia Pecoraro.
The photos are by Lucia Pecoraro, Marta Formentello, and Settimo Cannatella for Venezia da Vivere.