13/05/2011
Giudecca & San Giorgio
San Giorgio Maggiore
The view from San Marco to this island is one of the definitive Venetian views, immortalised by artists including Canaletto, Turner and Monet. Home to a Benedictine monastery and Palladio's Renaissance basilica with its elegant campanile, it is also hosting three important Biennale shows.
Real Venice
Officina dell'Arte Spirituale, Abbey of San Giorgio (next to the Cini Foundation)
Artists: Lynne Cohen, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, AntonioGirbés, Nan Goldin, Pierre Gonnord, Dionisio Gonzalez, Candida Höfer, Tiina Itkonen, Mimmo Jodice, Tim Parchikov, Matthias Schaller, Jules Spinatsch, Robert Walker, Hiroshi Watanabe.
Organisation: The Venice in Peril Fund 4 June-31 September. The Venice in Peril Fund has invited numerous top photographers, curated by Elena Foster, to immortalise the city - the first time that contemporary artists have been commissioned to create an exhibition about Venice for the Biennale. The results, shown under the umbrella of Vittorio Sgarbi's wide-ranging Italian Pavilion, are impressively diverse: from Philip-Lorca diCorcia's Turner-esque views of the Lagoon, through Robert Walker's lurid Venetian Apron Suite featuring comedytourist aprons, to Candida Höfer's sumptuous, precise images of interiors of the Fenice theatre and Hiroshi Watanabe's inkily brooding Commedia dell'Arte figures. The artists have donated their photographs to Venice in Peril, so in November the works will travel to Philips de Pury, London, where some will be auctioned and the rest sold privately so that the charity can go on working to ensure that La Serenissima not only survives, but improves, for future generations.
www.veniceinperil.com
Ascension
Basilica di San Giorgio Artist: Anish Kapoor
Organisation: Arte Continua - Associazione Culturale 1 June-27 November. San Giorgio Maggiore hosts Kapoor's attempt to give form to the immaterial; an honour, as it is the first time the Basilica has been used for a contemporary installation.
Rising to the challenge, Kapoor will create a vortex of smoke between the transept and nave - a reference, among other things, to the Exodus story of Moses following a pillar of cloud.
www.arteallarte.org
Penelope's Labour:
Weaving Words and Images Centro Espositivo "Le Sale del Convitto", Cini Foundation
Artists: group show of over 10 artists including Alighiero Boetti, Maurizio Cattelan, Grayson Perry, Marc Quinn.
Organisation: Giorgio Cini Foundation 4 June-18 September
A show based on the CiniFoundation's collections of historic tapestries - many of which hang in the grand hall of this ex-Benedictine monastery - shown along with experiments with the medium by contemporary artists. Among the varied highlights are Grayson Perry's temming Walthamstow Tapestry (2009), a work by Maurizio Cattelan, and a project by Azra Aksamija on ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
www.cini.it
Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore Isola San Giorgio Maggiore
Ruskin reserved some of his most fervent criticism for Palladio's first solo church. But in its pure white grandeur it is a masterpiece of the classical Renaissance style,and contains some superb paintings. Tintoretto's Last Supper has gone to the Giardini for ILLUMInazioni (pxx), but his Gathering of Manna and very last painting, The Deposition (both 1594), remain in situ. The church's campanile can be climbed, and offers wonderful views.
San Giorgio Monastery Giorgio Cini Foundation, Isola San Giorgio Maggiore.
Open for guided tours at weekends, this holds some of San Giorgio's most thrilling elements, including cloisters and a refectory by Palladio, and the grand staircase and library by baroque architect Longhena. A small number of Benedictine monks still live in the monastery.
The view from San Marco to this island is one of the definitive Venetian views, immortalised by artists including Canaletto, Turner and Monet. Home to a Benedictine monastery and Palladio's Renaissance basilica with its elegant campanile, it is also hosting three important Biennale shows.
Real Venice
Officina dell'Arte Spirituale, Abbey of San Giorgio (next to the Cini Foundation)
Artists: Lynne Cohen, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, AntonioGirbés, Nan Goldin, Pierre Gonnord, Dionisio Gonzalez, Candida Höfer, Tiina Itkonen, Mimmo Jodice, Tim Parchikov, Matthias Schaller, Jules Spinatsch, Robert Walker, Hiroshi Watanabe.
Organisation: The Venice in Peril Fund 4 June-31 September. The Venice in Peril Fund has invited numerous top photographers, curated by Elena Foster, to immortalise the city - the first time that contemporary artists have been commissioned to create an exhibition about Venice for the Biennale. The results, shown under the umbrella of Vittorio Sgarbi's wide-ranging Italian Pavilion, are impressively diverse: from Philip-Lorca diCorcia's Turner-esque views of the Lagoon, through Robert Walker's lurid Venetian Apron Suite featuring comedytourist aprons, to Candida Höfer's sumptuous, precise images of interiors of the Fenice theatre and Hiroshi Watanabe's inkily brooding Commedia dell'Arte figures. The artists have donated their photographs to Venice in Peril, so in November the works will travel to Philips de Pury, London, where some will be auctioned and the rest sold privately so that the charity can go on working to ensure that La Serenissima not only survives, but improves, for future generations.
www.veniceinperil.com
Ascension
Basilica di San Giorgio Artist: Anish Kapoor
Organisation: Arte Continua - Associazione Culturale 1 June-27 November. San Giorgio Maggiore hosts Kapoor's attempt to give form to the immaterial; an honour, as it is the first time the Basilica has been used for a contemporary installation.
Rising to the challenge, Kapoor will create a vortex of smoke between the transept and nave - a reference, among other things, to the Exodus story of Moses following a pillar of cloud.
www.arteallarte.org
Penelope's Labour:
Weaving Words and Images Centro Espositivo "Le Sale del Convitto", Cini Foundation
Artists: group show of over 10 artists including Alighiero Boetti, Maurizio Cattelan, Grayson Perry, Marc Quinn.
Organisation: Giorgio Cini Foundation 4 June-18 September
A show based on the CiniFoundation's collections of historic tapestries - many of which hang in the grand hall of this ex-Benedictine monastery - shown along with experiments with the medium by contemporary artists. Among the varied highlights are Grayson Perry's temming Walthamstow Tapestry (2009), a work by Maurizio Cattelan, and a project by Azra Aksamija on ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
www.cini.it
Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore Isola San Giorgio Maggiore
Ruskin reserved some of his most fervent criticism for Palladio's first solo church. But in its pure white grandeur it is a masterpiece of the classical Renaissance style,and contains some superb paintings. Tintoretto's Last Supper has gone to the Giardini for ILLUMInazioni (pxx), but his Gathering of Manna and very last painting, The Deposition (both 1594), remain in situ. The church's campanile can be climbed, and offers wonderful views.
San Giorgio Monastery Giorgio Cini Foundation, Isola San Giorgio Maggiore.
Open for guided tours at weekends, this holds some of San Giorgio's most thrilling elements, including cloisters and a refectory by Palladio, and the grand staircase and library by baroque architect Longhena. A small number of Benedictine monks still live in the monastery.
www.cini.it
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