Finish this sentence…

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Prior to our opening, take a few moments here on our class blog to finish this sentence:

“Researching for an online exhibit on Venice in this seminar allowed me to…”

Consider addressing how you “thought across the class.” In other words…how were you influenced by your colleagues and co-curators, how did your research develop in response to the work of your co-curators, what did you learn from working on this class project, how have your ideas about Venice developed from this project? This will prepare you for your presentations at the opening Thursday. You may certainly respond to comments made by your peers…in fact, this is encouraged. Remember how to comment? Click on “Comments.”

Venice Biennale 2011 materials

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The curators of the Central Asia Pavilion invited several international curators and art critics to address isses regarding the representation of nations at the Biennale.  Their responses can be found here:
VENICE BIENNALE. NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS, Questions from the curatorial of the Central Asia Pavilion

The following reviews of the 54th Biennale were written by Preston Thayer for Art Aujourdhui (art-of-the-day.info), a French online art journal:

Dispatch 1 from 2011

Dispatch 2 from 2011

Dispatch 3 from 2011

DIspatch 4 from 2011

Dispatch 5 from 2011

Dispatch 6 (final) from 2011

 

 

 

Thinking about the exhibit?

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Hi everyone!  And that includes Jim and Tim.

Take a look at the Student Work tab (thank you Jim and Tim) and see the image Melanie posted.  Something like that could make an intriguing opening page to our exhibit if we want to think in terms of “exhibit.”  It could be an interesting way for visitors to move through our space.  Any ideas?  Other suggestions?

I’m reading over the research ideas you’ve posted and am impressed.  You have very interesting topics so far…also BIG topics.  Be thinking about how you might focus these broader topics into a topic you can take on in one semester.  Good work!

Research ideas…

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First…welcome again to ARTH 470Z and the latest Venice exhibit.  I enjoyed hearing about your interests in Venice and ideas on possible research topics.  I hope you’ll take a few minutes to comment to this post about those research ideas.  So respond in the box below and jot down a few lines.

My own research on Venice focuses on Giorgio Vasari’s account of the city in his Lives of the Artists, both 1550 and 1568 editions.  We tend to see Vasari as highly critical of Venice — it’s a place of luxury, the painters focus too much on color as opposed to drawing, they don’t have excellent models to follow, etc., etc.  And yet the city is, in its own way, central to the Third Part (the art of his time) of his Lives…and that’s what I find intriguing.

Finish this sentence…

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Prior to our opening, take a few moments here on our class blog to finish this sentence (from my post here on December 3):

“Researching for an online exhibit on Venice in this seminar allowed me to…”  Here, consider addressing how you “thought across the class.”  In other words…how were you influenced by your colleagues and co-curators, how did your research develop in response to the work of your co-curators, what did you learn from working on this class project, how have your ideas about Venice developed from this project?

This will prepare you for your presentations at the opening Thursday.  You may certainly respond to comments made by your peers…in fact, this is encouraged.

Remember how to comment?  Click on “Comments.”

More on the recent flooding in Venice

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A link to an article from the Times Online (UK) from a student outside our seminar to the floods in Venice.  More images and a short video are in the article.

Also from the Times Online (UK), an article with a interesting discussion of how Canaletto’s paintings allow us to understand, and perhaps depict, the flooding of Venice.

And another from The New York Times.

And this article from the BBC with photos and video.

At our opening…

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please be prepared to present an overview (5 minutes) of your research and a brief tour of your part of the exhibit (your wall labels).

Also, take another few minutes to complete this sentence:  “Researching for an online exhibit on Venice in this seminar allowed me to…”  Here, consider addressing how you “thought across the class.”  In other words…how were you influenced by your colleagues and co-curators, how did your research develop in response to the work of your co-curators, what did you learn from working on this class project, how have your ideas about Venice developed from this project?

Ads on buildings

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Katherine A. has also forwarded three photos she took last week in Venice.  I need some time to allow this to settle before writing.  I hope you’re as outraged as I am…

Above you see the church of San Simeone Piccolo, begun in 1718 by Giovanni Scalfarotto.  It is located on the Grand Canal just opposite the railroad station — therefore it greets you upon your arrival in the city, it is one of the first things you see in Venice, and is probably the first building to register in your mind upon exiting the station and entering the city.  You may recall the following image that I showed in class when we discussed 18th- and 19th-c. architecture in Venice.  Clearly, the church is in dire need of repair, but the new ads erase the structure and replace it with an icon to commercial greed.  Save Venice?

Here (above and below) you’re looking at the Bridge of Sighs…generally considered one of the most romantic and mournful sites in the city.  The bridge connects the Palazzo Ducale to the old prisons…both of which are obliterated under the ad showing sky and clouds.  You can walk through this bridge (as did prisoners of the Republic on their way to trial…or execution) on a tour of the Palazzo Ducale, and can also see it from the Molo or the Ponte della Puglia at the lagoon-side of the Palazzo Ducale.  I have no idea what this ad “sells.”  Is that good business?