Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta
When I told a friend I was going to Venice a few years ago, she warned that I would need no more than two days, three at the most. Of course it's an interesting place, she said, but all you need is two days: you go on a gondola ride, visit the Piazza of San Marco, peep into a museum or church, do some shopping, and that's about it. I did not quite believe her, but just to be on the safe side, I booked a hotel for no more than two nights.
Contrary to what my friend said, I extended my stay another two nights, and guess what, Venice has since held me forever under her spell.
Arriving by Alitalia from Rome, I took a water taxi from Marco Polo Airport in Tessera, about 10 kilometers north of the city on the mainland. The sleek motorboat took me to the front of my hotel in less than an hour at a cost of 120,000 lire. Today it would cost about 70 euros. I can hardly describe the thrill of that first ride on the Grand Canal, the city's multi-laned main ""street"". As the boat zig-zagged through the wooden piles indicating the water levels, a world opened up elucidating Venice's role as a melting pot of cultures, its historical links with the Orient, and a unique melange of Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance architecture. The Grand Canal is almost two miles long, and reportedly lined with houses built in the 12th to 18th centuries in which patricians used to live.
Venice is a city with buildings literally planted in water and 117 isles connected by 400 bridges, while 170 canals are lined by narrow alleys paved with stone. Created more than 1,000 years ago, Venice boasts the most marvelous palazzos, museums and churches. In Venice, there are two alternatives for transportation, your own two feet or the vaporettos servicing various water routes.
Gondolas are yet another alternative, but while such rides can be a unique experience when taking a solitary ride in the late afternoon or the early evening hours, walking the small alleyways provide an alternative that is the privilege of those who stay away from large tourist groups. Free from dust and polluting fumes or horns, it is on such walks that one can virtually hear the silence of the streets, which may be located just a minute's walk from the usual tourist spots like St. Mark's Square, the heart of Venice, a vast open square with fluttering pigeons, the edges of which are lined by arcades containing shops and restaurants, with terraces and music.
Forgoing mad rushes through museums, or racing from one historical landmark to another, I chose to go for quiet strolls, idling along the waters where even gondolas, the traditional tourist attractions, do not pass. I would frequently lose my way in the maze of narrow alleyways twisting into secluded corners or meandering along the small canals, sometimes passing a palace, a church, a small museum or other historical monument.
Now and then the canals would disappear from view. At night, returning from a magnificent concert held in one of the old churches, the alleys would be empty, the only noise being my footsteps echoing on the stone pavements and the crumbling facades over which red geraniums flower, the only sign of life.
There is a strange fascination, an almost haunting melancholy, in the casual interplay of spaces against an always irregular and asymmetrical backdrop, a lonely square in front of a church with just a few trees, and the small cafes and trattorie in narrow alleyways.
The magical islands of the city's lagoon offer another place of leisure. Murano is Venice in miniature. Made up of a number of smaller islands linked by bridges, it is known for its beautiful glass. Half an hour away from Murano is Burano, a fishing village known for its excellent lace, but Torcello is the most interesting. Venice's birthplace, it was once an important town and the seat of a bishop, with wool manufacturing as its main source of income. Today, Torcello is an almost deserted shell, but its open fields and peaceful backwaters are worthy of a visit.
Every two years, Venice becomes a place where the latest in the arts comes from all over the world. Running from June 12 to Nov. 3, the Venice Biennale with its main spaces located in the classic Giardini grounds in the district of Castello and the Corderie dell'Arsenale brings together the works of leading artists from around the world.
This year, the Venice Biennale has added another distinct feature. For the first time since its early beginnings 110 years ago, women have been assigned to take the lead in this prestigious event. The well respected Maria de Coral and Rosa Martinez from Spain, who arranged the spaces to reflect on the past (The Experience of Art) and welcome the emergence of the new (Always A Little Further).
The giving of the Guerilla Girls a major place in the Arsenale, once the sprawling warehouses and factories of the imperial Venetian shipyards where the latest forms mark the trends relevant at the beginning of the third millennium, is telling for the Biennale's new gender orientation.
The Guerilla Girls are an anonymous (masked) group of women, whose actions since 1985 are meant to gain more recognition and respect for female artists. The change in attitudes in the current Biennale has indeed brought the work of women artists to the fore more than ever in the past.
Not only that, the president of the Fondazione la Biennale di Venezia, Davide Croff, and the directors of the 51st International Art Exhibition, Mara de Corral and Rosa Martnez, announced on May 24 that the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement would be awarded to artist Barbara Kruger from the United States, and it was presented on June 10 in Venice in an awards ceremony at the Teatro alle Tese in the Arsenale.
Furthermore, Guatemala's Regina Jos Galindo (born 1974) received the Golden Lion for best young artist based on her film showing herself shaving off her body hair, having her hymen surgically replaced, and protesting violence against women in her native Guatemala by dipping her feet in blood and walking down the street, leaving bloody footprints behind her. France won the best national pavilion award with Annette Messager's reinterpretion of the Pinocchio myth in a dramatic and crowd-pleasing installation.
The percentage of women artists participating has distinctly risen. Though exact figures have not been announced yet, the names of women artists in the ""main"" halls of the biennale, the Italian Pavilion and the Arsenale, indicate a percentage of 30 and almost 50 percent respectively.
While it may not be possible to see all the fascinating works of women artists, some are so huge, you just can't miss them. For instance, the 16-foot-tall chandelier made by French-born resident of Portugal, Joana Vasconcelos (b. 1971), from 14,000 unused tampons. There is also a giant spaceship sculpture titled Wave_UFO by Japanese artist Mariko Mori (b. 1967), a streamlined 1940s silver ball where one steps in to experience a seven-minute virtual-reality trip that turns brainwaves into art. One may also be tempted to try one's hand at an interactive typewriter installation crafted by Brazil-based Rivane Neuenschwander (1967)
While some critics have a problem acknowledging the quality of some of these works, others have hailed them as refreshingly diverse and not overwhelmingly political. But politics denied German artist Gregor Schneider the change of constructing a huge black box in the middle of St Mark's Square, which he intended to be a facsmile of Islam's sacred site of pilgrimage in Mecca. The photographs by Miyako Ishuichi, in which the intimate possessions of her dying mother are contrasted in detailed pictures of her scarred skin, are stirring images of women's lives and their dramatic transformation in Japan.
There are also Paloma Varga Weisz's life-seized wooden female figures suspended like Christ on the cross, the six-channel film by Korean-born Kim Sooja (b. 1957) denoting a journey into herself through video projections of images of a woman, who, back turned, stands unnoticed in the middle of several crowded cities or performing in a graveyard, the works of 94-year-old Louise Bourgeois (b. 1911) with two simple but stunning aluminum-coil sculptures hanging from the ceiling, and certainly many many more.
Outside of the ""main"" halls, many independent national displays from different countries also attract one's attention. With increasing numbers of participants from other continents, it seems the balance between East and West is on the way to being made more equal.
Indonesia's exhibition at the Venice Biennale (the 3rd time since 1951) includes works by Yani Mariani Sastranegara.
While some critics have a problem acknowledging the quality of this year's Biennale, others find it refreshingly diverse. It will be interesting to see whether other biennales around the world will follow the lead of Venice. Box 1
Venice can be reached by an 8-hour train trip from Rome. By air, it's just an hour away from Rome. Its Marco Polo Airport has connections to many European cities, including Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Paris, Frankfurt and Zurich.
