31st December 2008
St. Mark’s Square
Also this year the event will be held in St. Mark’s Square, starting from 10.00 p.m. on 31st December. In fact ‘Love’ is back, namely the new format for the New Year’s Eve to welcome all together the year 2009. Last year nearly seventy thousand people gathered for the biggest communal kiss in the world under a spectacular scenery: luminous hearts appearing in the sky in a firework display, a rain of multicolour hearts on people and hearts again running after one another on St. Mark’s bell tower. And lots of people in love in the Square, joining a simple and magic gesture at the same time, a mark of love, brotherhood and peace. Not loud fireworks but kisses that went round the world, by a media event which has become a symbol. ‘Love’ is back and that is a good thing, it is right that the most important night of the year leaves a love mark going beyond the borders of our town in order to involve people and
from 5th June to 4th October 2009
Museo Correr, Venice
A hundred years have passed since the publication of the Manifesto of Fu
turism, the first great Italian vanguard movement that will be celebrated by three great exhibitions in Rovereto, Venice and Milan and will be supported by the Department of Cultural Activities and Heritage. Futurism 100 inaugurates its scientific programme with the exhibition of Mart of Rovereto ‘Enlightenments – Confronting vanguards. Italy, Germany, Russia (17th January – 7th June 2009). It will go on with Abstractions at Museo Correr in Venice (5th June – 4th October 2009) and it will end up with Simultaneity (15th October 2009 – 25th January 2010) at Palazzo Reale in Milan.
The project, curated by Ester Coen, represents the most wished Italian event of the Centenary celebrations, as it proposes, by means of the three exhibitions, an unknown consideration of Futurism, namely an artistic vanguard whose relationships with the most daring European experimentation of the early Nineties are still not carefully examined. Tania Danieli
Last Friday 31st October the President of the Biennale of Venice, Paolo Baratta, accompanied by the Director 
of the 53rd International Art Exhibition, Daniel Birnbaum, met, in Venice, at Palazzo Querini Dubois, the people representing the Countries joining the 53rd International Contemporary Art Exhibition, which will take place from 7th June to 22nd November 2009 at the Giardini dell’Arsenale (4th, 5th and 6th June) as well as in other places in Venice. Besides Paolo Baratta stated that the Biennale has approved the project establishing that the paper contents of the Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts (ASAC), such as the historical papers, documents, books, catalogues and periodicals, will be moved to the Ala Pastor of the Pavilion Italy at the Giardini. Thus just starting from the 53rd Art Exhibition of 2009 the Pavilion Italy will be partially reorganized and beside the historical archives a didactic area will be set up in the Ala Pastor, as well
The Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation has always paid a great attention to young artists. And it does that by carrying out its mission by which, for a century, it has awarded its ateliers to the worthiest artists. It is from here that ‘Opera 2008’ derives, namely a final exposition of the seven young artists and the two groups that made use of ateliers Blm in 2007/2008. besides, this year the foundation celebrates two important anniversaries: first of all the centenary of the expositive activity of such Institution, started in 1908. Since 2008, then, the ateliers have finally reached number twelve, as it has been confirmed in the memorandum of association of the Foundation. Curated by Mara Ambrozic and Stefano Coletto, the ‘Opera 2008’ exhibition is divided into two sections. In the first one there
from november 1, 2008 to march 1, 2009
Museo Correr
The Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia are opening the celebrations marking the centennial of futurism – that will have its climax in the great exhibition at the Correr in June 2009 – with an invaluable foretaste, dedicated to Fortunato Depero (1892-1960).
The exhibition was made possible thanks to the generosity of the Fedrizzi family, who not only agreed to the collection, belonging to Giuseppe Fedrizzi (1918-1979) and amassed over the years during his friendship with the artist and his wife Rosetta, but who have also agreed to leave it to the Venice Civic Museums, as a long-term loan to Ca’ Pesaro.
It includes over eighty works created between 1914 and 1956 – oils, temperas, ink and charcoal drawings, collages, advertising sketches, intarsia in wood and coloured fabrics, furnishing projects – with famous masterpieces such as the Bolted Book (1927) or Nitrito in
3rd October to 16th November 2008
St. Apollonia Cloister
In the exhibition rooms of the Diocese Museum in Venice the French sculptress Pascale Loisel’s exhibition, ‘Conversations’, has been taken place since 3rd October. It is a collection of about forty bronze and resin artworks of different sizes, realized in order to pay homage to the life of the artists and masters most loved by Loisel, from Rodin to Giacometti, Bacon, Schiele, Duchamp, Music and Ida Barbarico, by means of a constant reference not only to sculpture but also to painting as well as interpretation, as a symbol of that kind of freedom being an extremely important element of modern sensitivity. At first sight her sculptures give back their features, namely they look like portraits. But a second slow and persisting observation, on the contrary, reveals concealed contents beyond outward appearances. For instance, in the portrait of Francis Bacon the matter is engraved just like in the deformed and upsetting visages of the English artist, while Egon Schiele’s body is tormented like the protagonists of his paintings, Marcel Duchamp’s face reveals the
18th October – 2nd November 2008
Brolo Art and Culture Centre, Mogliano Veneto
Last Saturday the Brolo Art and Culture Centre in Mogliano Veneto inaugurated the group exhibition that offers us the opportunity of admiring the finalist thirty masterpieces of the painting section related to the International Art Prize Arte Laguna, namely an art competition which – in such edition – has confirmed its position as the most attractive on a national level, by overcoming the competing 3.300 works of art coming from all over the world.
The exhibition, open until 2nd November 2008, recreates with a good approximation, by means of the selected artworks, a representative outline of the evolution which has involved the most traditional of the media. The different trends alternate by hints, starting from the experimentations close to realism, in order to reach the limits of technique as far as the sectors in which definitions are useless, passing through material artworks, going beyond the limits of graphics and concepts, representing what strikes, provokes, the politically incorrect, the pop and low brow world: an
20th September – 19th October 2008
Lagoon Park in Venice – Thetis Space – Biennal
From 20th September to 19th October 2008 it is possible to visit the Lagoon in a definitely original way. As a matter of fact the Lagoon Park Institution, in scope of the event Lagoon Park Shelter, namely a series of floating emplacements (which have been defined ‘ shells as shelters’ by those who created them in scope of the Architecture Biennal) located in strategic and panoramic points of the lagoon, organises guided tours on some small very picturesque boats, namely the ‘bragozzi’, among the scenic wonders of the urban archipelago of Venice. The tour starts from the Certosa Island, then it reaches the Vignole, Forte St. Andrea, St. Erasmo, while the morning tour reaches the Lazzareto Nuovo, St. Francesco del Deserto and St. Giacomo
12 september - 9 november 2008
The year 2008 celebrates the millennium of Genji Monogatari, namely the Story of Genji, the Bright Prince’, known as the first novel in the history of literature of all times. It is a story made of 54 chapters written in Japan iduring the Heian period (Eleventh century) by the lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu.
The Oriental Art Museum of Venice is celebrating it by means of an exhibition. More than forty works of art are on display, coming from the rich collections of the museum, which cannot usually be seen by the public; they are all characterized by very refined decorating patterns related to the image of Genji, a romantic prince, whose novel deals with the life and the tangled love affairs of the court environment of those times. Particularly remarkable is a precious painted paper album dating back to the second half of the Seventeenth century, of which you can admire, by means of a video on purpose realized, all the pictures related to the chapters of such novel. In addition to that there are also paintings, folding screens, dresses, lacquers, toys, musical instruments, hilts and sword equipments. The iconographic meaning of the works on
14th September -23rd November 2008
Last Saturday 13th September Light on Party opened the photo and video exhibition “ZOOM – Inside the human space”. It is the fourth stage of a displaying itinerary, which is involving St. Servolo Services in the creation of a exhibition and research area dedicated to art, photography and the new media in Venice. It is a project which included: in 2005 the exhibition ‘Italian Camera’, dedicated to the Italian emerging photography; in 2006 ‘Flashes on the water. The Invisible Town’, an exhibition entirely dedicated to Venice between tradition and innovation; in 2007 it was, then, the turn of the international scene with the exhibition ‘Shot and Go – A vision of today’s international photography’’.
This year the attention moves back to the national scene, with an exhibition proposing the alternation between the photographic language and videos. ‘Zoom – Inside the human space’ wants to investigate, also
