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

Casa di Carlo Goldoni
4th July / 31st October 2008
every Friday, 6pm

A series of weekly concerts performed by Ensemble Musica Venezia with the aim of promoting music by 17th and 18th-century Italian composers and other composers of this period, like Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach, associated with Venice.
Concerts in program:
4th, 11st, 25th July music by Vivaldi, Bach, Kapsberger
5th, 12th September music by Vivaldi, Mozart
19th, 26th September music by Corelli, Vivaldi, Torelli
3rd, 10th, 17th October music by Monteverdi: Scherzi, Madrigali
24th, 31st October music by Galuppi, Hasse, Canzoni

Fortuny Museum
30 August 2008 - 5 January 2009

This is the very first exhibition dedicated to George Barbier (1882-1932), artist and fashion illustrator, theatre designer and protagonist of the Art deco movement.
The exhibition is a remarkable and fitting opportunity to revive both the memory and knowledge of a considerable renown artist while alive but quickly forgotten after his death. For the first time, it makes it possible to study and understand the diverse aspects of his vast production. It is arranged according to themes. It begins with his early works, then continuing with a section dedicated to theatre and cinema with his drawings for costumes and theatre design. It then goes on with a vast, spectacular section dedicated to fashion illustration – including, amongst other things, pochoir, watercolours and drawings - followed by the priceless, limited editions of the highly refined albums, almanacs and books illustrated by Barbier. Finally,

Ca’ Pesaro - International Gallery of Modern Art
12 September - 16 November 2008
Forty years after his first major show in Venice – a room dedicated to his work at the 1968 Venice Biennale – Morandini returns to Venice with an important exhibition at Ca’ Pesaro, to be held in concomitance with the Biennale Architecture - 11th International Architecture Exhibition.
Comprising more than 60 pieces, the show will include 34 wall sculptures and ‘structures’ in white- or black-lacquered wood that were produced over the period 1978-2008. All in all, these works of art, architecture and design chart 30 years of work by a multi-faceted figure who has engaged in endless

20th August 2008
According to yesterday’s Il Gazzettino, namely the remarkable local newspaper, the inaugurating ceremony of Calatrava’s Bridge, or the fourth on the Canal Grande, is just a matter of few weeks. The attestation of work-end is dated 30th June and during the latest month in the builder’s yard, workers are just arranging some important details. Still there is not only the confirmation by the Quirinale about the presence, on 18th September, of the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano for the official inaugurating ceremony. Should the Italian President assure his presence, he might find himself in the embarrassing situation of inaugurating a nameless bridge. Such debate, as far as we know, is still open. The potential names could be ‘Santa Lucia’s Bridge’, deriving from the church that used to stand out there and that was demolished for the building of the railway station, or ‘ St.Chiara’s Bridge’, named after  the ancient convent on the other side of the canal. In short, it seems that the bridge

August 27 – September 6 2008

The following jurors have been nominated to join president Wim Wenders on the International Jury for the Competition of the 65th Venice Film Festival, directed by Marco Müller and organized by the Biennale di Venezia.
They are Russian screenwriter Juriy Arabov, a significant voice in contemporary Russian cinema; Italian actress Valeria Golino, the winner of the Coppa Volpi in Venice at the early age of twenty, and one of the most beloved Italian actresses abroad; British visual artist Douglas Gordon(photo), internationally renowned and acknowledged by major artistic institutions throughout the world; American cult filmmaker John Landis, who experiments in virtually every film genre with a scathing, satirical point of view; young director Lucrecia Martel, the most significant female voice in New Argentine Cinema; and Hong Kong director Johnnie To, representing the best contemporary Asian cinema and who has featured prominently in the recent history of the Venice Film Festival.
On September 6th, the closing night of the Festival, the Venice 65 International Jury will award the following prizes to the feature-length films in competition: the Golden Lion for Best Film, the Silver Lion for Best Director, the Special Jury Prize, the Coppa

august 29th, 2008
Burn After Reading, written and directed by Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen, will open the 65th Venice Film Festival at Lido di Venezia, to be held from 27th August to 6th September 2008, directed by Marco Müller and organised by La Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta.
The film, starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, and Brad Pitt, will be given its world premiere on the evening of 27th August in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema, following the opening ceremony of the 65th Festival.

In the dark spy-comedy, Mr. Malkovich plays an ousted CIA official whose memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise Washington, D.C. gym employees intent on exploiting their find. The director of photography on Burn After Reading is Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men). Mary Zophres is the costume designer, marking her eighth consecutive feature with the Coens. Jess Gonchor, production designer on No Country for Old Men, encores in that capacity on Burn After Reading.

The film series, organised on the occasion of the late opening of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, will counterpoint the iconography of the show Coming of Age. American Art, 1850s to 1950s with four journeys into the world in which the average American lives and is (cinematically) immersed. More precisely, the films examina the environment of American cinema as a physical, topographical place and as a projection of desire, anxiety, nostalgia, hope and terror: four films representing the moral as well as physical models of the American soul.

2 July, 9 pm. The innocent gaze at the environment. The series begins with Edwin Porter’s classic silent film The Great Train Robbery (1903, 11 min), the first film in the history of cinema to utilize a rudimentary form of montage.

9 July, 9 pm. An impossible desire for idyllic nostalgia. Terrence Mallick’s Days of Heaven (1978, 94 min), a retrospective look at the young America of the 1910s, sees Hollywood cinema confronting the classic dichotomy of city life and country life.

16 July, 9 pm. (Rain) people on the move. With the film The Rain People (1969, 101 min), the young Francis Ford Coppola confronts the rapport between the individual and environment in flux, typical of many on the road genre films.

23 July, 9 pm. Terror on the post-atomic horizon. For this fourth “environment” an atypical film noir was chosen, one of the last of the genre of these American classics: Kiss Me Deadly (1955, 106 min) by Robert Aldrich.

The president of the International Jury for the Competition of the 65th Venice Film Festival (27th of August to 6th September 2008), will be one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation, the German director Wim Wenders, who has formed close ties with the Festival over the years.

Indeed, Wenders appeared at the Lido already in 1972 with his first feature, The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty Kick (Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter), and won the Golden Lion 10 years later with The State of Things (Der Stand der Dinge), the first in a series of important awards that have led him to the forefront of international cinema.

The director’s output has coincided frequently with the Venice Film Festival during recent decades. In 1989, he presented Lightning over Water in the Mezzogiorno-Mezzanotte section; in 1985, he presented Docu Drama at the International Critics’ Week; in 1994, his Arisha, the Bear and the Stone Ring (Arisha, der Bär und der steinerne Ring)