Our last day in Venice was full of great art~
We visited many other pavilions at the Biennale.
The Russian Pavilion was provocative, thoughtful, participatory and my absolute favorite. Vadim Zakharov’s installation, was inspired after the story of Danaë. In Greek mythology, Danaë, is the mother of the Greek hero Perseus. The god Zeus appeared to her as a shower of golden rain and impregnated her.
Entering the first room I saw a bucket sitting on the floor attached to a long rope which was fished through a hole in the ceiling. People were throwing coins in the bucket. With amusement and curiosity I threw in a mix of quarters and Euro cents and watched it as it was pulled up through the hole in the ceiling. I proceeded into the next room. Only women were allowed. I was handed an umbrella. Then I saw it. The change that was being harvested in the bucket was now raining down on us from the top of the skylight. A man in a suit watched from the balcony above.
Golden coins shower down on the women below
I continued upstairs and saw a man sitting in a saddle perched on one of the ceiling beams. He seemed to sit in contemplation and peeled and ate one peanut at a time… the shells falling into a giant and growing pile on the floor.
In the final room I could watch the man who pulled up the bucket of coins through the hole in the ceiling, emptying the bucket on to a very long conveyor belt, which brought them up to the top of the very high ceiling and showered them down on the women below.
The conveyor of coins headed up to the ceiling
An inscription on the wall wrote:
“Gentlemen, time has come to confess our Rudeness, Lust, Narcissism, Demagoguery, Falsehood, Banality, and Greed, Cynicism, Robbery, Speculation, Wastefulness, Gluttony, Seduction, Envy and Stupidity.”
Afterwards we took another water taxi off the main drag, down narrow waterways to dinner at a little place called Osteria Boccadoro. Afterwards, to my delight, we got completely lost. All the streets kind of look the same but there are new charming details around every corner. Venice is an excellent place to get lost. Out of time, we wandered down the empty cobblestoned streets. The whole city was deserted. Venice is enchanting, but at the same time, dead. The heart of Venice is hooked up to a pacemaker and the tourists and those who cater to them make up the artificial heartbeat of this place. It’s sad that the city has become so expensive that the locals have all moved away. I imagine Venice in its prime and it must have been the most romantic and enchanting city to have lived in. I could see myself there, rowing my little boat down the canals to visit friends. After weaving the Venetian labyrinth for what seemed to be a long time, we came across this magical little shop full of hand painted masks. The artist was in there surrounded by his world of creations. He let me take a portrait of him.
With a second wind from the whimsical masks, we set out again to find the public boat stop on the Canale Grande. Each place we passed looked like we’d been there before, the little bridges are all so similar, the narrow corridors, the restaurants. Hopelessly lost, but happy to be so, we kept guessing… left or right? Left or right? Finally Perola said, I smell the sea! The canal is close! And sure enough at the end of that passageway the road opened up to the main drag along the Canal Grande. We hopped in a boat and left the sleeping labyrinth behind us.
Tomorrow I am off to Napoli! It is my first time in Italy- a place I have wanted to visit most of my life. I am so curious and excited.
More soon~
