Category Archives: Vita Venexiàn

Mi stago ben…

Buongiorno, VeneziaUnica (addio, VeniceConnected)

VeneziaUnica is the new portal the offers advance purchase for all passes and services you’ll use while you’re visiting the city. The online portal was activated October 7, 2013, replacing and eventually expanding on other online venues like VeniceConnected, Venicecard, with more likely to shift there in the future.

FOR TRAVELERS

VeneziaUnica Composer

Just passing through? Use the composer to select, then purchase passes and services for each individual in your travel party, including

• ACTV passes
• museum & church passes (VeniceCard, San Marco Museums, etc.)
• land and water transfers (Aerobus/Alilaguna)
• toilets, wi-fi

with more to be added over time.

Where you retrieve your pass/tickets depends on the service you purchase, it has not changed. What seems to have changed is that services are no longer date specific, which is probably a good thing.

What is misleading from the English description is that they talk about it being a city pass. There is no single card for all services for the traveler; there is a single portal with a “composer” that you can use to purchase a number of services in advance, that you retrieve individually according the services; instructions will be included as they always have.

VeneziaUnica city pass will also replace imob/CartaVenezia (though your imob will act like a VeneziaUnica city pass until it expires): the card is free, the paid services for residents and frequent visitors that may be activated via the city pass are public transport, bike sharing, car sharing (Italian driver’s license required), car parks, wi-fi, etc.

FOR RESIDENTS and FREQUENT VISITORS

Residents and frequent visitors will be issued free VeneziaUnica cards, then use them to activate paid services such as ACTV services, car park, car sharing,

Your current imob card will act like a VeneziaUnica card until it expires, when it will be replaced with a VeneziaUnica card.

 

Last minute holiday giveaway, til midnight tomorrow!

There’s still time. Hurry and leave Susan Van Allen a comment about who inspired your love for Italy for a chance to win a heap of wonderful Italy-inspired books (including Italy: Instructions for Use, & Gemelli Press‘s newest release, True Vines)!
To enter the giveaway, just click the link below, and leave your comment until midnight tonight, Sat, December 8, 2012:

Susan Van Allen’s
Golden Day Holiday Giveaway

NOTE: Don’t leave your comment on this post, make sure to skip over to Susan Van Allen’s blog.

Sirens announce “code red” high tide.

140 cm is a very high acqua alta tide warning…and the four ascending tones (the maximum number) tell you so:

They sounded at about 8:15 p.m. this evening, between three and and half hours prior to when the tide’s expected to peak. It’s a dramatic tide, and a bit early in the season; the rain and wind have stepped right in to make sure that promise is fulfilled. Though there’s little abnormal about the weather anymore; last year there were so few high tides we were beginning to think they’d subsided for good. Of course there was no snow for skiing either, which it didn’t sit well with winter wonderlanders at all.

That, and the next high tide will still be nothing to sniff at, 130cm that will peak at 10:5o, still accompanied by rain and diminishing winds. This is what we’re expecting tonight; the ISTAT site will bring it to you in real time.

While not at all pleasant, and in many cases labor intensive (two friends have been working in ground level stores and apartments and storerooms to get merchandise and furnishings up and away from the water’s intrusion), it pales in comparison with the devastation and havoc Sandy wreaked along the U.S. eastern seaboard. As water begins to seep under the downstairs entryway door from the calle even now, I consider myself quite lucky.

 

Grandi Navi: Two Demonstrations say “Open Season”

There’s lots of activity around the opening of “cruise season” in Venice, and citizens are mobilizing to continue to protest their presence.

It’s a rainy weekend in the forecast, so it’s hard to say what the participation might be. In the meantime, here’s a rough translation from their Facebook page:

No Grandi Navi ProtestThe cruise season resumes in full force the weekend of April 14 and 15: as many as 9 (nine!) ships will arrive and depart this Saturday and Sunday. The Comitato No Grandi Navi has decided to mobilize now, raising its voice to renew the demand to remove these monsters from the fragile lagoon.

At 15:30 on the 14th, there will be a procession of private boats from San Marcuola to the Canale Grande Bacino of San Marco: citizens, in fact, are invited to repossess their water city in any sort of private boat: rowing, motorboats, sailing, pedal, canoe, kayak, or surfboard! Who doesn’t have a boat, or is on foot, will be transported by the Committee.

It’s important that there’s a lot of us, to give the peaceful sign that we don’t need cruise ships to stay afloat in the lagoon, and that certain ships and the dredging they demand are incompatible, polluting, destructive.

If anyone wants fly a flag or sign or banner that asks the cruise ships to stay out of the lagoon, obviously it would be welcome. Venetians, given free rein to your imagination!

Then, from 14:30 on the 15th, we will set up a garrison along the Zattere with an information point, launching a signature campaign for the ouster of ships from incompatible lagoon.

Drinks, cichèti, and jazz and blues music for everyone!

Please join with us to proclaim that Venice belongs to its citizens, and not to the airlines or cruise ships or the Port Authority.

Boat sflilata of the 14th in Canal Grande
Meet at 15.30 at San Marcuola

Signature Fest, Music & Drinks for all
14:30 on the Zattere 

 

 

Klimt (and Hoffman) Conquer the Correr

The time is la Belle Èpoche, the place is Vienna. Women are still corseted, but Freud is probing their psyche; while Art Nouveau begins to sweep the continent, Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffman ‘secede’ in igniting a new world of art and architecture.

Klimt at the CorrerThe excitement at press conference was palpable, even in an off-Art Biennale year. And such a crowd: perhaps two hundred journalists and photographers, gathered in one of the most splendid ballrooms in the city. Not to dance, at least not literally…

The Museo Correr on Piazza San Marco has just launched “the art event of the year in Italy,” according to Correr director Gabriella Belli, and hails a return to international collaboration for the museum because, as director of the Belvedere in Vienna Agnes Husslein-Arco puts it, “A country’s art is its best ambassador.”

“Being his 150th birthday year,” reported Husslein-Arco, “We had requests from all over the world to host Klimt’s work. But we chose Venice.”

The Secession was the movement in Vienna founded in 1897 by Klimt and architect-interior designer Josef Hoffman (among others), so named because they seceded from the conservative artist’s union of the time to pursue and document the creation of Gesamtkunstwerk, the total work of art.

The exhibit itself is multifaceted, and richly illustrates the symbiotic collaboration between Klimt and Hoffman along with their contemporaries with a commentated timeline of two decades of paintings, jewelry, personal artifacts, and even the Beethoven Friezes (albeit copies) created by Klimt, once installed the iconic Hoffman building modeled before it.

Klimt at the Correr

The museum interior has been completely refashioned to highlight the works presented: windows are covered, walls re-formed and painted, and in some cases effectively replaced (as in the case of the friezes) to permit each work to shine.

Klimt at the Correr

And shine they do. Curator and Klimt expert Alfred Weidinger recounted the story of when Klimt was visiting Venice with a few friends, one of which was the charming Alma Schindler (later Mahler, whose former-Venetian abode is now the Oltre il Giardino B&B). The luminous mosaics of the San Marco Basilica interior, along with the equally luminous Alma Schindler, must have created quite an impression on Klimt, which manifested, said Weidinger, during his Golden Phase when he employed the extensive use of gold leaf and recalled mosaic form in paintings such as the opulent Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer* and The Kiss. The deeply-hued walls are ideal for featuring these works’ shimmering golden tones.

Klimt at the Correr, VeniceThe Kiss is not at the Correr (“The Kiss does not travel,” in fact); but Judith is here, as is Salomè, the Portrait of Marie Henneberg (above), and even Girasole — the Sunflower — donated to the Belvedere only ten days before the opening of the show at the Correr. (By the way,  Salomè did not travel to the Correr from the Belvedere—but instead from across the Canal at the permanent collection at Venice’s own Ca’ Pesaro museum of modern art, where it was acquired after Klimt’s grand success at the Biennale of 1910. In fact, Ca’ Pesaro is hosting a collateral exhibition on the same theme, The Spirit of Klimt, a perfect complement the Correr exhibit.

Klimt was an interesting character; he painted no self portrait (If you want to see me, look at my work) and kept no diary. He died of complications of Influenza 1918, leaving a number of unfinished paintings.

So, Happy 150th Birthday, Heir Klimt. We’re happy to be able to celebrate your life and work today in this splendid exhibit.

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Klimt in the Sign of Hoffman and the Secession
mostraklimt.it

Museo Correr, Piazza San Marco
Vallaresso stop (Line 1, Line 2)

Daily 10 – 7pm (ticket office closes at 6pm)
through July 8

€12
discounts for seniors, students, and with the San Marco Museum pass.

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* A recent NPR story highlights The Lady in Gold, a book recounting the recovery of Adele’s Portrait, appropriated by the Nazis during WWII.