Can't get rid of my obsession with Acqua Alta

Découvrez la playlist blog avec Armonie Symphony Orchestra, Uberto Pieroni

Acqua Alta Birds Waltz

Acqua Alta is a phenomenon that appears in the winter season thanks to the peaks that occur periodically in the northern Adriatic Sea.

Scirocco winds blows northbound waters towards Venice gates that clear through customs and turn them into Bora winds which profused into every corners of the Venitian landscape.

The Moon is also said to play a significant role in the waters level.

Last week we've got two full days of Acqua Alta and I could'nt resist to soak my feet into plastic boots and go straight to Piazza San marco (the lowest point of Venice).

I arrived in a no man's land -which is quite interesting for one of the world's most visited place- where I was hunted by birds as if they wanted to tell me I've crossed the border of their lands.

How beautiful is the Piazza San Marco when the natural world have chased the tourists for a moment giving back its virginity and beauty, the reflect of unflowing waters project the reverse side as if a black hole was attracting the landscape deep into another dimension.

Contemplative and avoiding any sudden movement, I let myself go off on the water waltz gulls were sharing all around.

La Fenice

«La Fenice » , a word that is engraved in the collective memory . Unfortunately not in mine. Fuck my parents of never have taken me to the opera. I went there three times since I'm in Venice: the first was a single visit, the second was an invitation my class received for Lodoïska di Cherubini and the last one was l'Elisir d'amore.

First, the place is majestic, the ceiling light which dominates the room look like a tree branch that has been invaded by a firefly swarm, the box seats are disposed on four floors and organized along the imperial box Napoleon used to cherish.

Elisir d'amore tells the story of Nemorino, a poor peasant in love of Adina. Ready to do everything that is possible to make her love him and push back the rich soldier who wants Adina as his wife,Nemorino hears about l'elisir d'amore and wants some. Here, a doctor or magician enters; he looks like he's some kind of cirucs performer with redhair raised above his head and a golden jacket (that I particularly like). His two assistants are dressed like the daughter Dita Von Teese and Paris Hilton could have together (Pink boa feathers + fishnet stockings). The magician proposed to the lover a bottle of elisir (called the Queen Iseult's love potion just like in the video I did 2 years ago) that is in fact, a bottle of red wine while precising to Nemorino that it will work in only 24hours. Nemorino drinks instantaneously the bottle and go to Adina. Upset by Nemorino enthusiasm she accepts the soldier's proposal.

« Adina, credimi, te ne scongiuro »

Nemorino, in his deepest grief goes back to the magician to get some more elisir but he has no money left. He decides to become a soldier of Adina's futur husband for 20 «scudi»

The girls of the Village learn in the same time the death of Nemorino's wealthy uncle that makes him turn into a good match that all the girls want to marry. Adina hears about the Elisir and attributes Nemorino's love for her to it. Desappointed of not being able to be loved for what she is she lets escape a single tear that Nemorino's perceived and realized that she loves him back.

She admits him her love «Prendi, per me sei libero» and the magician meets the success with the sale of Elisir d'amore bottles.

Aliénor.

Dicks at the museum

Punta Della Dogana - 0 - 1 - Peggy Guggenheim

La vita a Venezia

Ouch. I've just seen my last post and yes I definitely look like a posh bitch.

Judging of my non existing following post about my pretending innocent side of life, huge changes were expecting.

Dirty laundry bag behind, I've moved to Venice La Sérénissime or City of waters, I've swop my underground tube against the vaporetto and my rue Mouffetard appartement for a beautiful palace above charming canals.

On mornings, opera' singers woke me up peacefully as they entertain chinese tourists gondola' stroll and disapperared in the haziness behind punto dei Tolentini.

My lectures at the Ca'Foscari university occupying 90% of my time, I spend my free hours between the - oh god - palaces (where I've already pictured myself a hundred times in ten years with a diamond tiara, a long black dress and high red gloves) of the Gran Canal, the many art exhibitions and other cultural events of the city.

Let's have a look:

Palazzo Grassi - Punta Della Dogana website

These two magical places (the first is an 18th century jewel and the other an industrial heritage storehouse at the crossroad between the Giudeca's canal and the Gran canal) present the François Pinault collection.

As I drive a group study on it I had the chance to meet yesterday all the staff and do a much more detailed visit.

Two years ago I visited Sequence 1 exhibition and it was already amazing. The creme of contemporary art from one room to another, Urs Fischer monumental installation on the centre , Anselm Reyle's fluorescent monochrome and Mike Kelley installation.

The foundation has now taken its legitimacy in the Venitian landscape and won the concession of Punta Della Dogana last year. Mapping the studio is the binary exhibition that the two institutions are sharing, it is supposed to feature the work-in-progress of the world's famous contemporary artists...bla-bla-bla.Most expensive and less risky works of art that's it.Even if there is no link between pieces, the collection is as rich as its owner.You can dance on Nazy's on Piotr Uklański piece and pass through the red blood cell pearls of Felix Gonzales Torres. As you immerse yourself into the superflat painting technique of Takashi Murakami, two steps after you enter into the night life of Bruce Nauman studio. On the first floor of the Punta Della Dogana the Fucking Hell installation of the Chapman brothers bring you back to your childhood with 30 000 nazis plastic soldiers and a Charly to find between them (look for him, he is at the top of a hill painting a naive landscape while facing the horror of the war). Oh and yes I forgot, if you look with caution there is a dinosaur gaving birth to siamese brothers...does that make sens?

Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Since I red her biography 5 years ago I have always been fascinated by PG. She was a visionary in her time, she kept falling in love with complicated artists, she got the palace life and the wardrobe I dream every night of and overall the funky sunglasses EVER. After one week in Venice, I run to buy them...ok people look at me like I am some kind of stranger here (Venice is a small small town) but I cannot tell that I am not used to or that I don't like it

Wearing this glasses while I was visiting the collection made me meet the director who thanks me for promoting PG around

A Brancusi bird sculpture, a Duchamp studiocase and a Renée Magritte Empire of light were my top three works. I've never been a big fan of Magritte and I've seen copies of Empire of light a thousand times in books, art history lectures but the real canvas is beyond comparison. The artifical and natural lights struggling in such a poetic way that you never know where Magritte let you: in the darkness of the first plan or in the cloudscapes of the second

Biennale of Architectura

I don't know anything about architecture and if there is one place in the world to appreciate it it should be the Biennale. No hindsights on it I can only tell that contemporary artists should learn from architects how to manage spaces.

Top three:

cloudscape made by german climate engineering firm and japanese firm tetsuo kondo architects explores the poetic nature of artificial cloud

Dancing waters as I nicknamed the work (I can't remember who did it) are a series of hoses dancing with the water pression in the dark. With a beam of light the waterdrop turn into diamonds and the magic occured

The Forty- Part Motet is an immersive sculpturally-conceived sound piece made by Janet Cardiff. She used 40 separately recorded voices played back through 40 speakers. Using recordings of the Salisbury Cathedral choir singing Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui (1573) by Thomas Tallis, one of England's most influential Renaissance composers.

It is probably the room where I stayed the longer in the Biennale, I've closed my eyes in the centre of the speakers and let the sound create an architecture around me.

Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti - Stanley Kubrick Photography

Long before he became the filmmaker we all know, Kubrick was a photographer. Starting as the teenarger the exhbition traces how he captured the mood of his times. The exhibtions shows 200 pictures (and is really small) but no fault. Every series underline how Kubrick was meticulous and how he framed his visions.

Two series were stunning: the first was on a 12 years old shoe-shine boy in NY and the other one on the dark side of the circus industry

The Biennale du Kitsch

The first sense of the Kitsch word is representation. Thus the exhibition organizes along the real nature of the concept 30 figurative artists.

Odd Nerdrum and Helene Knoop entered in my A-list of favourite figurative painters directly!

Many other exhibitions done, I have also attend two operas at la Fenice and one classical concert, being to Murano, San Michele cimetry, visited Scuolas and churches... but I am tired to write it down

With the gap between my last post and this one, the suspens lies in what will be the next one.

Maybe I will be the first astronaut riding the Mars Dunes or just an alcoholic surviving in a flat her brother and sister are sub-leasing for her.

Aliénor.