Got up, headed out to a caffe very near the apartment for breakfast – hot chocolate and apple croissant. Went back to get my camera and then walked 15-minutes to the Arsenal (Arsenale) and got to entrance there a few minutes before 11am. The theme this year is Biennale Arte 2022 - The Milk of Dreams.
The Venetian Arsenal (Arsenale di Venezia) is a complex of former shipyards and armories clustered together in Venice in the Castello dstrict. Owned by the state, the Arsenal was responsible for the bulk of the Venetian republic's naval power from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. It was "one of the earliest large-scale industrial enterprises in history". Construction of the Arsenal began around 1104, during Venice's republican era. It became the largest industrial complex in Europe before the Industrial Revolution, spanning an area of about 110 acres, or about fifteen percent of Venice. Surrounded by a 2-mile rampart, laborers and shipbuilders regularly worked within the Arsenal, building ships that sailed from the city's port. With high walls shielding the Arsenal from public view and guards protecting its perimeter, different areas of the Arsenal each produced a particular prefabricated ship part or other maritime implement, such as munitions, rope, and rigging. These parts could then be assembled into a ship in as little as one day. An exclusive forest owned by the Arsenal navy provided the Arsenal's wood supply.
The “InfoPoint” entrance at Arsenale opened on time, and gave directions on where to meet our guide in a few minutes, but the guide came looking for us because we were in the wrong place, just a few feet away. Jennifer the guide is from Cologne, college student studying art history, and spoke absolutely fluent English with idioms – wow. On top of that she was extremely knowledgeable about, and/or very well trained for, the Biennale. She had a specific route through the many buildings and it was so interesting to see all the unusual and out-front modern / contemporary art pieces / installations. She answered any and all questions with competent answers – very impressive. One thing I noticed as we walked by was a very large sculpture that looked like a Louise Nevelson piece. I asked Jennifer who said it was Nevelson, but she had not been trained on it and could not provide any info. The rest of the artwork was extensive and very different, and this year 90% of the work was by women, including many women of color. I bought a sandwich and ate it sitting in the shade of one of the buildings and looking at the waters of the lagoon.
My next stop was the second major venue of Biennale, the Giardini, gardens towards the south of Venezia whereas Arsenale is at the north. The Giardini della Biennale were created by Napoleon Bonaparte who drained an area of marshland in order to create a public garden on the banks of the Bacino di San Marco – a narrow stretch of water dividing the gardens from Piazza San Marco and the Doge's Palace. The gardens contain 30 permanent pavilions. Each pavilion is allocated to a particular nation and displays works of art by its nationals during the Venice Biennale. Several of the pavilions were designed by leading architects of the 20th century, including Carlo Scarpa and Alvar Aalto.
The country pavilions are:
Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, Nordic countries (Sweden/Norway/Finland), Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Venice.
At this venue it was mostly separate buildings acting as pavilions for individual countries and there are also pavilions scattered around the city representing 80 nations, some with just a few pieces on exhibit. I visited Israel, Greece, Denmark, Nordic Countries, Canada, US and probably some others I don’t recall.
A very full day and I was tired from walking for hours. For dinner I walked along the Grand Canal and found a simple place where I had a pizza and vino rosso, then headed back to the apartment. It was now dark, and the small alleyways and passages of Venice are not easy to navigate. I eventually got close, I thought, asked the servers at a café to point me toward the address, which through some trial and error was literally across the passageway from the café – all of us cracked up! And it takes 3 keys to access the apartment, one for the metal gate onto the public way, the other for getting into the building, and a third for the apartment door. Then it was time to crash.
Google Photos of Venice (many of these photos have descriptions, so if you open a photo and look at the info tab you will the descriptions):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ufNKiT5qNsbS2R316
The Venetian Arsenal (Arsenale di Venezia) is a complex of former shipyards and armories clustered together in Venice in the Castello dstrict. Owned by the state, the Arsenal was responsible for the bulk of the Venetian republic's naval power from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. It was "one of the earliest large-scale industrial enterprises in history". Construction of the Arsenal began around 1104, during Venice's republican era. It became the largest industrial complex in Europe before the Industrial Revolution, spanning an area of about 110 acres, or about fifteen percent of Venice. Surrounded by a 2-mile rampart, laborers and shipbuilders regularly worked within the Arsenal, building ships that sailed from the city's port. With high walls shielding the Arsenal from public view and guards protecting its perimeter, different areas of the Arsenal each produced a particular prefabricated ship part or other maritime implement, such as munitions, rope, and rigging. These parts could then be assembled into a ship in as little as one day. An exclusive forest owned by the Arsenal navy provided the Arsenal's wood supply.
The “InfoPoint” entrance at Arsenale opened on time, and gave directions on where to meet our guide in a few minutes, but the guide came looking for us because we were in the wrong place, just a few feet away. Jennifer the guide is from Cologne, college student studying art history, and spoke absolutely fluent English with idioms – wow. On top of that she was extremely knowledgeable about, and/or very well trained for, the Biennale. She had a specific route through the many buildings and it was so interesting to see all the unusual and out-front modern / contemporary art pieces / installations. She answered any and all questions with competent answers – very impressive. One thing I noticed as we walked by was a very large sculpture that looked like a Louise Nevelson piece. I asked Jennifer who said it was Nevelson, but she had not been trained on it and could not provide any info. The rest of the artwork was extensive and very different, and this year 90% of the work was by women, including many women of color. I bought a sandwich and ate it sitting in the shade of one of the buildings and looking at the waters of the lagoon.
My next stop was the second major venue of Biennale, the Giardini, gardens towards the south of Venezia whereas Arsenale is at the north. The Giardini della Biennale were created by Napoleon Bonaparte who drained an area of marshland in order to create a public garden on the banks of the Bacino di San Marco – a narrow stretch of water dividing the gardens from Piazza San Marco and the Doge's Palace. The gardens contain 30 permanent pavilions. Each pavilion is allocated to a particular nation and displays works of art by its nationals during the Venice Biennale. Several of the pavilions were designed by leading architects of the 20th century, including Carlo Scarpa and Alvar Aalto.
The country pavilions are:
Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, Nordic countries (Sweden/Norway/Finland), Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Venice.
At this venue it was mostly separate buildings acting as pavilions for individual countries and there are also pavilions scattered around the city representing 80 nations, some with just a few pieces on exhibit. I visited Israel, Greece, Denmark, Nordic Countries, Canada, US and probably some others I don’t recall.
A very full day and I was tired from walking for hours. For dinner I walked along the Grand Canal and found a simple place where I had a pizza and vino rosso, then headed back to the apartment. It was now dark, and the small alleyways and passages of Venice are not easy to navigate. I eventually got close, I thought, asked the servers at a café to point me toward the address, which through some trial and error was literally across the passageway from the café – all of us cracked up! And it takes 3 keys to access the apartment, one for the metal gate onto the public way, the other for getting into the building, and a third for the apartment door. Then it was time to crash.
Google Photos of Venice (many of these photos have descriptions, so if you open a photo and look at the info tab you will the descriptions):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ufNKiT5qNsbS2R316