Venice: Day 2 (8/23/19)

Up at 6am and on a train into Venice. That landed me in front of the Gallerie dell’Accademia by 8:10, which opens at 8:15. Damn I’m good! Had a snack while waiting and spotted some pigeons taking a bath in one of the little fountains, hella cute! I also noticed the city is pretty dead in the morning, which was nice compared to yesterday afternoon where the main streets were a human swamp.

The Gallerie was hosting a Baselitz exhibit which I hit first. I wasn’t expecting too much after reading the opening statement that was raving about how the fact he painted portraits upside down is “deconstructing portrature” and “redefining art”. But I actually really liked how his figures had finished areas and parts that were left as rough sketches which really focused your attention. I could at least appreciate that from an artistic standpoint. That being said, his Arrival paintings did strike me. Parts of them reminded me of the art style I occasionally saw in old comics that I read as a kid. With heavy outlines and blocky torsos on spindly limbs. They were also just plain huge, easily a good 10ft tall in a room of regular 2ft paintings, which gave them a little more ompf.

I then made my way through the standing exhibit which had a few paintings I liked but was very renaissance, which is starting to get stale for me at this point honestly. I did like a series of large murals that detailed the story of a noble lady and her marriage entourage of 11,000 virgins being slaughtered by the Turks at the Arsenale in Venice. I also spotted Castel Sant’Angelo in one of the paintings which I thought was pretty sick since I was just there!

While resting my feet near the exit I had a present conversation with a family from Vermont. The dad is a chemical engineer that loves to travel so we chatted about humility in science, how dumb school applications are, and how to avoid accidentally buying a rug in Turkey. The kid was obviously just passing time until he got back to their hotel room and could go back to playing geometry wars. Reminded me of myself as a kid traveling lol.

My next target was the Peggy Guggenheim collection but I stopped to check out a free art exhibit by Zorikto Dorzhiev in a small church (which I later found out is actually the only Anglican church in Venice). Super cool - I really like his art! He’s a Russian artist that is heavily inspired by the steppe nomads and I found his commentary on the loss of ancient cultures due to their blending with modern society to be very moving. His work also appeals heavily to my aesthetic and I ended up buying a little 5 euro print of my favorite piece there, though I doubt it will survive the journey home to be honest since I have no way to safely transport it.

I stopped at the Peggy Guggenheim collection to dodge a bit of rain and chatted with a grandma from Eau Claire, small world! She was hella grumpy though and had an unending supply of complaints about traveling in Europe. On the topic of food she proudly exclaimed she is only interested in burgers and streaks while traveling. I peaced out asap once I realized we weren’t going to connect on anything since i don’t need that level of grump in my life!

I opted to skip the collection since it looked like mostly renaissance art and the tickets were fairly expensive. Instead I made my way to the Basilica di S. Maria della Salute. Its a church, its big, its round, its got an organ and a cool facade. It was pretty but I didn’t linger and made my way further south and along the edge where I discovered a shocking number of free public art exhibits. I stopped by “Living Rocks a fragment of the universe” and a modern art one about mankind’s progress forward. I liked the Rocks - they were made of ancient tree roots and focused on how bacteria helped to shape the world we live in today. The modern art one was just too weird for me. Like 3D soundscapes comprised of chanting and how-its-made style videos in one room then a chair with a taser that you can sit in to zap yourself but then never actually goes off when the countdown reaches zero. Weird stuff that I was not a huge fan of.

Back at the hostel I found a guy, Brandon, to share diner with. We made coconut curry, which turned out just OK, and chatted about travel. He’s been on the road for 2 months out of 3 total starting in Sweden and working his way south to Italy before pivoting and heading the France. It was a pretty chill evening all in all which was nice after being go go go for like 10 hours.