Travels of THB: Venezia Art Day 1

Venezia: Art Day 1

THB's most unique pic of the trip: a woman running in front of a great Dumas painting

THB, DB and SC stroll around for 6 hours. It is hard to go much faster in Venice, between the crowds near Piazza San Marco and the narrow streets that don't go straight for more than 25 meters. THB's phone almost runs out of charge after taking so many pictures.

Hotel Cipriani for breakfast (awesome) and dinner (lovely canal side bistro).

DB, SC and THB start at 10am with hotel taxi (free) to San Marco, return the same way. Purchase three day passes on the vaporetto (water bus) at end of day, they will activate tomorrow ($35, a bargain as a single trip is around $7...or is it $9?).

There is a Kiefer exhibit at the Doges, we don't have advance tix. The line to purchase tix isn't moving...this is a high volume location right at the corner of San Marco, so we decide to put it off for another day.

Olivetti is closed, the Gormley exhibit can be seen through the window

The tour for Electrical Engineers, very small group

A store specializing in Fornasetti

Our first major success: the Marlene Dumas show in the Palazzo Grassi. Her work is great, looks great in the exhibition space, and we spend quite a bit of time here. THB has put the bulk of the pics at the end of this post.

Dumas's daughter, Helena. There is a biographical video of Dumas in which her now 30 year-old daughter talks about being her mother's muse and how all her friends can see her naked as a child on posters all over town

THB caught this woman rushing into THB's pic in front of a great Dumas

Stop for lunch just beside the Accademia Bridge: setting ideal: under an umbrella, next to a canal, away from crowds. Pizza, salads, brewski, food just okay and THB doesn't mind at all, $70

Stops to see various miscellani shows spread throughout Venice, including Joseph Beuys, and the Guggenheim collection (pristine, very high quality modern art collection), and temporary exhibition (surrealism and magic).

Sculptures composed of small paper boxes. THB didn't engage at all. SC and THB got separated from DB and there was a short text war to reconnect (THB did not engage)

THB liked this small work on paper

St. Peter (?) with the machete to the head

Ahhhh, the gelati stop of the day very near our hotel of THB and DB and SC's last two stays, the Sina Centurion Palace.

$5 for two large scoops if you want table service

These two women booked their table for the entire afternoon

Back to San Marcos and the Kiefer exhibit. THB would swear the same people we saw at 10:15 are still waiting to get in, so we decide to pre-order tix for tomorrow thru the hotel concierge. Great idea: we get 3 tix. OOOPS, one is for 9:15 and two are for 11:30. Concierge's advice: don't say a word about how the tix don't match. Will that work? Read tomorrow's post...tomorrow?

Take the water taxi shuttle back to hotel, sit by the pool for several hours (THB takes a very short dip in the salt-water pool, very warm).

Then a sunset dinner at Cips, the hotel's "casual" dining spot. Turns out dining in the bar is even more casual though the band is loud! 3 pastas, 1 plate of grilled veggies, 1 bottle of Soave (half carried over by the restaurant), 1 negroni, $220.