Then I heard that a dinner for the Adelina von Furstenberg–curated Joseph Kosuth installation at the Mekhitarian Monastery on the island of San Lazzarro degli Armeni was even more spectacular. As Vezzoli observed, “It’s arte povera becoming baroque, and glamour becoming political.” Even though I hadn’t seen much of the Biennale yet, I didn’t see how things could get much better. The installation, which parked two enormous, gold-studded, cast-leather “fallen” tree trunks beside a circular screening room where Vezzoli’s fake election-campaign videos were playing, was really stunning. “I have gone from being perceived as Jerry Zipkin to being Noam Chomsky,” he said, in reference to stories about his work in several major European magazines, which raised preshow jitters and transformed him from walker to scourge.įor his part, Penone had cast the walls of one gallery in ruffled leather and covered the floor in rippled marble. Vezzoli was repeatedly called away by curator Ida Gianelli or some state official. I would have been riveted by this coincidence, but Jeanne Moreau, on Vezzoli’s right, was a seductive distraction, even at seventy-nine. At Vezzoli’s table, where he was the only man, I saw that Geldin had replaced some of her wardrobe by buying a black Prada sheath-only to be seated next to Miuccia Prada herself. I didn’t see either John or Stone at the official Italian-pavilion opening on Wednesday night, where Sotheby’s Tobias Meyer, curator Francesco Bonami, New Museum director Lisa Phillips, and her board member Stephanie French kept one another company before dinner within. It was his new video, Democrazy, that brought Sharon Stone to Venice, so she could pal around with part-time Venetian Elton John, who was supposedly performing on Saturday night. “I thought I ought to mention that.” In fact, Emin seemed to have more lunches, cocktails, and dinners in her honor than any other Biennale artist, including the very social Francesco Vezzoli, corepresenting Italy (with Giuseppe Penone) in the country’s first appearance at the Biennale in umpteen years. “It’s my party,” Emin announced, when at last she appeared on deck wearing hot pants, platform heels, and a low-cut black top. (Photo: Linda Yablonsky) Right: Naomi Campbell with members of the Brazilian art collective Morrinho. And the guest of honor-in this case, Tracey Emin-is not usually sleeping it off below, while a flotilla of the fabulous, led by photographers Mario Testino and Juergen Teller, dealers Sadie Coles and Angela Westwater, artists Guillermo Kuitca and Hernan Bas, curator Neville Wakefield, and many a marvelous Missoni help themselves to champagne and calamari. For example, Rachel Lehmann and David Maupin regularly host parties for their artists, but they don’t often do so on a yacht owned by the Missoni family and anchored in the Venetian lagoon opposite the Piazza San Marco. At this soiree-like many other social occasions on the art circuit-a number of attractive and worldly people who have known or slept with one another for years gathered around a bar at the start of a big art week to imbibe prosecco and build up their strength for the even longer nights to come. Despite discovering my luggage missing and Wexner Center director Sherri Geldin filling out her own forms at the lost-baggage window on Tuesday afternoon, I was able to retrieve my wheelie only a few hours (and three hundred dollars in water taxis) later and still get to my first Biennale party while the evening was young. This sign said DON’T.Īctually, I had little to complain about. Then I saw the rest of the work (by Hüseyin Alptekin), another sign hanging above a large installation of small shacks with IKEA-style interior decor, meant to represent restaurant dining in Tblisi. Imagine my excitement on Wednesday when I stepped inside the Turkish galleries at the Arsenale and saw an LCD sign of the word COMPLAIN in bright orange letters. (Photo: Linda Yablonsky) Right: Curator Ida Gianneli with artist Francesco Vezzoli.
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