My Favorite Artworks at Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venezia (Venice)

Collezione Peggy Guggenheim (Peggy Guggenheim Collection), located in an unfinished 18th-century palace, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, boasts many modern masterpieces ranging in style from Cubism and Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism.

One of my favorite work there was a sculpture in the garden: The Cloven Viscount (Il visconte dimezzato) by Mimmo Paladino, which was simultaneously formal and fluid, familiar and strange, comforting and unsettling.  The figure, installed inside a small square brick confinement, in a small pile of gravels, was unassuming and even humble, but his intentionally stiff posture, resembling age-dried twigs, bore the traces of the ravage of time and wearying journey. 


The Cloven Viscount (Il visconte dimezzato), Mimmo Paladino, 1998

My second favorite work was a painting by Giogiro de Chirico, titled The Red Tower, in the typical style of the highly individual artist - subtly yet strikingly contrasting colors, enigmatic landscape and cityscape, opaque symbols and overwhelming sense of desolation and loneliness.  The focal point of the work, the Red Tower, was really a foreboding fortress squatting somewhat in the background, and held secrets the artists refused to divulge.

 
The Red Tower (La Tour rouge), Giorgio de Chirico, 1913


My Favorite Museum Collection Series
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List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

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- Guggenheim Museum Collections
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- "The Steins Collect" Exhibit in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
- Introduction to Fisher Collection and the 75th Anniversary Exhibit at SFMOMA
- Anderson Collection at Stanford University

Gondolas in Venice, Italy

In Venice, Italy, Gondolas have ubiquitous presences and are the most recognizable symbols of this lovely emerald city surrounded by lagoon and laced with the canals grand and small.  Those shining black leaf-shaped row boats, set off the green water and the pale marbled palazzi along the canals brilliantly.

Last October, when I visited Venice, naturally, I snapped many pictures of those flat-bottom, sharp-tipped boats traveling in the canal, lagoon, or mooring in the cove.

















One morning, one my way to the opera house, La Fenice, from Piazza San Marco, I stumbled upon a cove Agenzia Gondolieri Travel Bacino Orseolo, where gondolas parked overnight and it was quite a sight:






 








I particularly loved seeing those gondolas in the tranquil small waterways, strangely familiar and comforting.









The locals and brave tourists would cross the Grand Canal via a commuter gondola, Traghetto, standing:



Lastly, in front of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, I spotted in the Grand Canal a gondolier nonchalantly speaking on his cellular phone.  For us, gondolas were a thrilling novelty; for the locals, it was simply a way of life:





Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst: 
- Magical Piazza San Marco in Venice
- Teatro La Fenice di Venezia (La Fenice Theatre in Venice)
- Boy With Frog Sculpture and Punta della Dogana, Venice
- Bus Ride From Graz, Austria to Venice, Italy
- Magnificent Churches in Vienna
- Theater Experiences in Wien (Vienna)

Label: Italy, Austria and Italy Trip 2012

Teatro La Fenice di Venezia (La Fenice Theatre in Venice)

Venice itself is a museum and treasure box. From every angle, one sees something astonishingly beautiful, if somewhat aged and tired looking, though the charm of Venice does reside much in the apparent ancientness.  The main opera house in Venice, Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, however, does not attract one's attention with a flamboyant or stories exterior; it's a rather subdued classical structure, solid and unpretentious, and one hardly expects to encounter the remarkably exuberant Rococo beauty inside.

La Fenice (The Phoenix), dating back to late 18th century, was aptly named because it indeed re-emerged several times from fire and ashes, with the latest devastating fire taking place in 1996 and rebuilt subsequently from 2001 through 2003.

Quoting Wikipedia, "La Fenice was rebuilt in 19th-century style on the basis of a design by architect Aldo Rossi and using still photographs from the opening scenes of Luchino Visconti's 1954 film Senso, which was filmed in the house, in order to obtain details of its design. It reopened on 14 December 2003 with an inaugural concert of Beethoven, Wagner, and Stravinsky. The first opera production was La traviata in November 2004."

When I returned to Venice in October 2012, there was no performance scheduled in La Fenice then, so I took solace in touring the theater - a self-guided tour, with no entry time and duration constraints.  For an extra fee, visitors were allowed to take photos and videos of the pale green and gold color schemed auditorium, breath-taking for its almost too ornate, extremely detailed yet subtle beauty.  Words fail me here so I'll let the image to speak instead:























Below are images from two smaller halls, ideal for intimate recitals; though smaller and less elaborate, they were no less beautiful.






Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst: 
- Famed Palaces and Houses (Ca') in Venice
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- Magical Piazza San Marco in Venice
- Gondolas in Venice, Italy
- Boy With Frog Sculpture and Punta della Dogana, Venice
- Bus Ride From Graz, Austria to Venice, Italy
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- Christopher Wheeldon's Brilliant Cinderella at San Francisco Ballet
- Theater Experiences in Wien (Vienna)

Label: Italy, Austria and Italy Trip 2012

Boy With Frog Sculpture and Punta della Dogana, Venice

Gondola in front of Collezione Peggy Guggenheim, Venezia

When I visited Venice last October, the high water repeatedly threatened to derail my plans, and on the day when we visited a cluster near Punta della Dogana, including Peggy Guggenheim Collections and Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, the water and wind were quite threatening, so we only saw the sculpture "Boy With Frog" on the very tip of Punta della Dogana from the safe distance and missed the frog held by the boy entirely.  It was an intriguing enough a sculpture viewed from the back and though I was very curious about what to see in the front, I didn't want to be swept into the lagoon and believed that I could come back someday to see it again.  However, that turned out to be a wishful thinking.

According to BBC News, that iconic sculpture "Boy With Frog" by American sculptor Charles Ray, would be removed. 

Work has begun to take away a controversial statue depicting a naked boy with a frog in a part of ancient Venice, Italian media report.

The artwork, by US sculptor Charles Ray, will be replaced by a lamp-post at the tip of the Punta della Dogana. The decision has angered some art lovers who argue that it shows a failure to embrace challenging, contemporary work. But city officials say the sculpture was always intended to be temporary.

Boy with Frog, which is gleaming white and 8ft (2.5m) tall, has occupied the tip of a triangular piece of land that separates the Grand and the Giudecca canals for almost four years... It shows a boy holding up a frog by one leg and gazing at it.

In its place will be a reproduction of the original lamp-post... The old-fashioned landmark was thought to be more in keeping with the surrounding architecture, BBC Rome correspondent Alan Johnston reports.

Some animal-lovers also argued that the image of a boy holding the frog upside down was cruel, our correspondent adds.

But a piece in La Stampa newspaper criticised Venice's council, saying "administrative cowardice" had won out over real culture.

Defending its decision, the council said the sculpture had been considered temporary and Venice had a fine record of welcoming and exhibiting modern art.

Dogana, the dividing point between S. Marco basin, the Canale della Giudecca and the Canal Grande, and its imposing building, the former Dogana de Mar (Sea Customs Post), and the adjacent majestic Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, was huge and dramatic, particularly viewed from a certain distance, as we approached it from the vaporetto (water bus), and the ever shifting images were quite amazing:


Dogana de Mar (Sea Customs Post) and Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute







Up close, with a tall mast ship mooring nearby, the site was rather romantic and becalming, as we carefully picked our way on the flooded pavement towards the tip of Punta della Dogana.



The wind was strong, the water was choppy and part of the tip was under water already.  As waves constantly lapped towards a few brave tourists who pressed forward, I stood in the safe zone and took some snapshots of the boy behind his back, thus missed the frog dangling in the boy's right hand.


Boy With Frog, by Charles Ray, outside the Punta della Dogana



Thanks to outdoorPDK, I am including this photo below so my readers can have better understanding of this sculpture.  It was a beautiful one, albeit undeniably controversial.
 


By outdoorPDK

Moving away from the tip of Punta della Dogana, we saw another unforgettable sculpture, a very somber "Vater Staat" (2010) by Thomas Schütte, in front of the grand Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute.


Vater Staat by Thomas Schütte, 2010, in front of Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute

To me, the most memorable feature inside the Basilica was its huge geometric patterned floor under the huge rotunda. Endlessly fascinating.


Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, Venezia, 15 October

There were several wonderful sculptures, shrines, and paintings; however, this visit took place near the end of our trip and by then I was suffering art saturation, therefore my memory of those artworks was somewhat dim.  Thanks to these photos below, I can remember their subtle splendor.






Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, Venezia, 15 October


Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst: 
- Two Museums in Venice - Gallerie dell'Accademia & Collezione Peggy Guggenheim
- Il Ghetto di Venezia and Museo Ebraico (Jewish Museum) in Venice
- Bridges in Venice, Italy
- San Giorgio Maggiore, Il Redentore, Scuola e Chise Grande di San Rocco, Venezia
- Magical Piazza San Marco in Venice
- Gondolas in Venice, Italy
- Teatro La Fenice di Venezia (La Fenice Theatre in Venice)
- Bus Ride From Graz, Austria to Venice, Italy
- Graz, the City Without Entrance, and Exit
- Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele in Wien (Vienna)
- Magnificent Churches in Vienna
- Visiting Four Universities in Austria and Italy
- UNESCO World Heritage Semmering Railway from Vienna to Graz

Label: Italy, Austria and Italy Trip 2012