Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The Venice Biennale enriches an already rich experience

The Venice Biennale enriches an already rich experience On a whim, two years ago, I took a friend up on an offer to visit her in Venice, Italy over the summer. She was studying for a Masters in Art, a program through New York University, and rented an apartment in Dorsoduro. The Venice Biennale was happening during this summer, making the trip rich in contemporary international art as well as the centuries-old Renaissance and Venetian art for which the region is famed.  The Biennale, so named because it occurs every two years in Venice, is a world famous, international art show. I loved the idea of seeing this show, one I’d always wanted to attend but probably wouldn’t have booked a ticket to Venice solely based on it occurrence. Having my friend living there was all the additional enticement I needed, and I’d have my very own Master of Art guide to the exhibitions.

On the very first night I arrived, we went to Bikini Bar, where the Icelandic artists exhibiting in the Biennale were playing a gig. I found out later that they are relative pop stars in their home country and I was doubly impressed that they were twice talented. All well dressed and hip, they played songs of their own making, the one that stands out in my memory was about being afraid of teenagers. I remember laughing a lot and realizing how surreal this experience was. I was attending an Icelandic pop group’s private concert (there were about twelve of us there) that they decided to play while in town for the exhibition of their art. This bar, like many in Venice, I’d come to learn, was a stone building hundreds of years old, on a canal, long with small, interconnected rooms, that opened to a central courtyard in the rear. There were gardens and fountains, tables and the art elite stationed there. We ordered an Aperol spritz and settled in. Not a bad first day at the Venice Biennale.

Icelandic pop stars welcome me to Venice
La Biennale
The show takes place in two different locations in Venice: the Giardini, the gardens where the permanent structures for the Biennale are located, and the Arsenale, where the famous Venetian ships were once built, now a network of spaces for the art displays. I enter the Giardini first, welcomed by a giant, metal Earth surrounded by metal chairs of all designs. I realize quickly that these buildings have designated country names on them, to the right, Venezuela marks the door of a building, to the left, Spain. I begin to understand. Each Biennale, an artist representative exhibits at their country’s space. I begin to wander.

Chair collection surrounds a giant globe in the Giardini entrance
Venezuelan house

The Denmark house stands out in my mind; a mid-century Danish designed bachelor pad, complete with beautiful Scandinavian furniture and a surprisingly erotic art collection is there for viewers (voyeurs?) to wander through. This home is half James Bond, half Dwell magazine (and a bit of Hustler magazine too) and there was a floating man’s body in the pool out front. Face down. I won’t feign to be able to analyze most of the art I saw, because not only am I unqualified, there was so much that I could barely absorb it all. I toured through the Danish house twice, needing more time to truly see every aspect of the display.

The Danish House 

The Egyptian and Serbian exhibits stand out in hindsight too. The Egyptian room had incredibly high ceilings, the use of which was employed by twenty-foot high rattan woven figures looming over the public as it walked through. These giant figures were congregating as if in conversation, elsewhere they bent over balconies, fed feral cats, sold items at market, rode bicycles with goods on their heads. The effect made you feel small, like a fly on the wall of a world much bigger than you, a place you cannot touch. The figures were beautiful, but the scale made you bow down to them.

The beautiful and eerie Egyptian exhibit

The Serbian exhibit is the one that really rocked me though. In a darkly lit space, tiny video screens played loops of barbershops, man after man filing through the seats to have their hair trimmed. Piles of felt blankets filled the room, wide and stacked tall, made of the hair collected in those shops. The hair of 240,000 people made 1,200 square meters of human hair felt. I cannot really tell you why this hit home, except to say that I worked in a salon for a very long time, watching the resource we all grow on our heads just get tossed in the trash. And yes, I realize it’s kind of creepy to talk like this.

Serbian haircutting exhibit
Felt blankets made of hair clippings

At the Arsenale, two exhibits made my day. First, inside the long, shipbuilding building, was a small round room into which you peeked to see endless number of lights. There was a buzzing, a whir, and lots of humming. On the outer wall, the artist’s statement described that there were toasters, televisions and other household appliances that have constant running lights. I found this especially funny because my sister and I ransack every hotel room we’ve ever been in to cover up all those lights. Those little lights keep me up all night long.

Lastly, my girl Miranda July, who I love in every way possible, had an exhibit on the grassy grounds between the Arsenale buildings. Following a pathway over little hills and surrounded by trees, July made white, clay tablets, podiums, and seats on which messages were scratched in a young handwriting. I took photos of the three progressively larger seats: The Guilty One, The Guiltier One, The Guiltiest One, written on the front of each (I have two older sisters). One for one sister: This is not the first hole my finger has been in, nor will it be the last, written on a tall, thin tablet with a hole in the center. One for my other sister: This is my little girl. She is brave and clever and funny…Her heart will never be broken… and on. This exhibit was such a surprise, for I am a great fan of July’s books and movies, and to see her work there was like having a friend appear before me.

Miranda July's outdoor exhibit 

I spent only three days wandering these exhibits, but could have spent weeks. It’s happening again right now, through the 27th of November, and you should go if you’re nearby. It’s the perfect excuse to see Venice and to eat all the gelato you can.

Arsenale interior
Knotted maze for us to climb through
Bird seed chandelier
Octopus coming out of the wall
Windows in the Arsenale
I can't explain this.
It's me.

A Love Affair Begins With a Peach

A Love Affair Begins With a Peach I love a good farmers market. I love turning a city corner and seeing tables and tents set up, piled high with produce, breads, pastas, fruits, and meat. I can spend hours looking through the offerings, making rounds before purchasing, always leaving with a new artisanal cheese, a chicken, or a basket of vegetables. Often, I just leave with the ingredients I’ll need for dinner.

Having spent so many years living in the Bay Area, where farmers markets are as ubiquitous as coffee shops, I grew accustomed to doing my weekly shopping there. They occurred each day of the week on random, closed-down streets throughout town, making it easy to stop by on your way home. In my neighborhood, it was Thursday afternoons or Saturday mornings where you’d see your friends, get a coffee from the cart, have a freshly baked tart, and plan your week’s meals by what the farmers were offering. I have even purchased knitting wool alongside tomatoes and kale from Northern California’s Full Belly Farm.

Sheep at Full Belly Farm

The convenience of having a market in your neighborhood not only increased the likelihood of you eating season-appropriate foods, but foods grown nearby (your “foodshed”), and grown by your neighbors, therefore invigorating your local economy. The same can be said for those creating art, crafts, and selling wares; this is a micro economy where your money has an especially high value.

Dairy Cows in Sonoma County

This is not a new idea; farmers have been selling their bounty at markets for as long as abundance spurred trade. But since we’ve designed our food system to make the supermarket seem like the ideal place to buy all that you need, farmers markets fell out of favor, therefore making farming a less likely pursuit. This reinforced the grocery chain system, assuring that only the biggest farms with the greatest output would survive. But there’s a better option. By supporting farmers markets, we take back a small-scale food system, specific to our region.

Freshly Picked Tomatoes from Baia Nicchia Farm in Sunol, CA

It is only within the last few decades that farmers markets have experienced a resurgence in number. The USDA reports that the number of markets in the US has more than tripled since 1994 (http://www.celsias.com/article/data-shows-explosive-recent-growth-us-farmers-mark/). The increase can only mean that young people are starting to take up farming as a career and are making the most of reaching their customers at such markets, and that the public is desirous of having such access to the people who grow their food. [See The Greenhorns documentary to fully appreciate this newest generation of farmers.]

Persimmons begging for harvesting

I support farmers markets for the economic benefit of cutting out shipping, fuel, and middlemen costs, choosing instead to give full price directly to the farmer. I also support them because it creates community and dialogue between producers and consumers, something that is lost when food travels from far away to reach your grocery store. But mostly I support farmers markets for their romantic quality.

Artichokes seeking attention

I know this sounds funny. Buying produce is not romantic in a loving, relationship kind of way, but it does introduce a new level of connection to your food. When you smell a peach from Frog Hollow Farm or Russell Orchards, in the height of peach season, it is the sweetest and most mouthwatering aroma one could experience. I choose each fruit for their perfect coloring, smell, size, and degree of ripeness. This is the epitome of a peach. It was picked hours earlier and handled with the utmost care. There were no big machines involved, no sprays, pesticides or fertilizers, no big-rig trucks and no fluorescent lights above my head in a nameless grocery chain (where the fruit sold is often picked unripe, weeks before sale). This peach, picked oftentimes by the person standing in front of me, stayed on the tree until the last minute, storing as much sweetness and nutritive value as possible. The riper the fruit from the tree, the better the fruit will be. [Now if that’s not a T-shirt in the making, I don’t know what is.]

The ripest peaches make the best jam

When you learn to appreciate the value of knowing your farmers, of eating food that’s in season, and of the freshness of a food that hasn’t traveled, you don’t want to accept anything else. The pleasure you get from knowing your bread man, your coffee girl, the tomato, apple, and lettuce farmers, changes your shopping and eating experience. You become connected, playing a much more active role in not only your own eating habits, but the community you have chosen as your home. The grocery store’s supposed convenience suddenly doesn’t seem so worthwhile anymore. You can also get everything you need from these markets: milk, cheese, vegetables, fruit, meat and eggs. And the hour you’ll spend collecting the fish you’ll eat for dinner (that has never been frozen and is from local waters) and the tomatoes that practically leapt off the vine with readiness and flavor, will be the hour your savor most.

I'm excited to find a market in Croatia