Civic Museums of Venice Announce Dynamic Program for 2014

Fernand Léger, La Ville, 1919 - olio su tela / A.E. Gallatin Collection, 1952/ © Ferna

(Venice, Italy) MANET. RETURN TO VENICE was the Really Big Show last year, 2013, for the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Venice's Civic Museums. Educated travelers from all over the globe came to Venice specifically to see the Manet exhibition, resulting, of course, in fine dining reservations and hotel bookings, which always makes the City Fathers happy.

Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo
Ca' Venier dei Leoni. Festa in costume. La marchesa Casati con Giovanni Boldini e un altro ospite, 1913

Yesterday, Venice's Civic Museums presented its jam-packed program for 2014. Right now I am only going to touch upon January and February (though I will squeal that I am really looking forward to Fortuny's Autumn at the Fortuny exhibit in October, which will star the Diva of all Divas, La Marchesa Luisa Casati Stampa, who was obsessed with being a "living work of art," and who lived in Palazzo Venier dei Leoni before the next diva, Peggy Guggenheim, arrived on the scene).

Fernand Léger, Trois Femmes à la Table Rouge 1921

In collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this year, the Museo Civici crew is hoping to have another success with LEGER. VISION OF THE CONTEMPORARY CITY, which will center around Fernand Léger's extraordinary work, La Ville. Painted in 1919 after Léger served at the Front during the First World War and returned to Paris with a head injury, La Ville, or The City would go on to influence an entire generation of artists, "becoming the manifesto of painting dedicated to the subject of the contemporary city."

Léger is all the fashion these days -- in 2008, Study for the Woman in Blue, a four feet tall Cubist canvas was sold by Sotheby's for $39.2 million, beating the French painter's previous record of $22.4 million set five years before. Last year, pop star Madonna sold her Léger, Trois Femmes à la Table Rouge, for $7.2 million to benefit her charity, the Ray of Light Foundation.

Piet Mondrian, No. VI / Composition No. II, 1920

Tate, Liverpool © Tate, London 2013

© 2013 o 2014 Mondrian / Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International Washington, D.C.

Over 100 works, more than 60 by Léger himself, will spotlight Paris during the decades between 1910 and 1930 when it was the world's capital for art, culture, trade and society.

LEGER. 1910-1930 La visione della città contemporanea
Museo Correr
February 8 to June 2, 2014

Peter Tillemans

London from Greenwich Park, 1718

It's always fun to look at a city the way it was centuries ago before transforming into a "contemporary city" -- here in Venice, we do our best to resist every attempt to impose the modern upon the ancient, but contemporary life does occasionally slip through. Taking place at the same time as the Fernand Léger exhibition, THE IMAGE OF THE EUROPEAN CITY from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, offers visitors the opportunity to contemplate how towns change over the centuries, from the Renaissance vision to the dynamic concepts of the early 20th century avant-garde movements -- all under the same roof, at the Correr.

L'immagine della città europea dal Rinascimento al Secolo dei Lumi
Museo Correr
February 8 to May 18, 2014 

Roy Lichtenstein - Man with Folded Arms, 1962

Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Panza Collection inv. 84.4
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, photo credit Brian Forrest

Giuseppe Pana di Biumo was one of the greatest collectors of American post-war art whose treasures included major examples of abstract expressionism, pop art, minimal and conceptual art, as well as pieces from the "third collection," built up since the 1980s. For the Giuseppe Panza di Biumo. American Dialogues exhibition, approximately 40 works by 27 artists will be loaned to Venice's modern art museum, Ca' Pesaro, from the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the MOCA in Los Angeles, two powerhouse American art institutions that hold the most important parts of the Panza di Biumo collection.

On display in Italy for the first time, the collection includes some of the finest works by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Franz Kline, Donald Judd, Mark Rothko, Dan Flavin, Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Joseph Kosuth, Richard Serra and many more. There will also be a group of significant works from the family's private collection.

Giuseppe Panza di Biumo
Dialoghi americani
Ca' Pesaro Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna Venezia
February 2 to May 4, 2014

Leone marciano andante by Vittore Carpaccio (1516)

During the Republic, Venice was ruled by a Doge, an official elected by the aristocracy -- not an inherited position like most other rulers of Europe. Nor was Venice ruled by the clergy. The Venetian aristocrats were merchants, and tried to create -- and maintain -- a truly enlightened Republic. One hundred and twenty doges -- warriors, politicians, scholars and even a saint -- succeeded each other, transforming themselves into the Republic's "emblem." Il Serenissimo Principe - Storia e storie di dogi e dogaresse or The Most Serene Prince - History and Stories of the Doges and Dogaressas takes us on a trip through the Doge's Apartment inside the Doge's Palace, delving into the lives of the men -- and their wives -- who ruled over one of the most unique civilizations the world has ever known.

The Most Serene Prince 
History and Stories of the Doges and Dogaressas
Palazzo Ducale - Apartment of the Doge
January 26 to June 30, 2014

Keiichi Nagasawa
Life
2002

The best EROS creations from the international Miniartextil exhibition are on display at the lushly restored and exotically scented Palazzo Mocenigo, Venice's museum of fashion and fabrics -- and now, perfume.Thanks to the collaboration with the Associazione Arte&Arte di Como, little evocative works of EROS, this year's theme, are over at San Stae, dangling from the ceiling. 'Miniartextil' is an annual international exhibition of contemporary art showing the best in Textile Art, an art sector with a revolutionary approach to the textile heritage and its materials.

EROS at Palazzo Mocenigo

Miniartextil EROS
Palazzo Mocenigo
January 11 to February 14, 2014

There are eleven civic museums in Venice -- the Palazzo Ducale, the Correr, the Fortuny, Carlo Goldoni's House, Palazzo Mocenigo, Ca' Rezzonico, the Glass Museum of Murano, the Lace Museum of Burano, the Museum of Natural History, Ca' Pesaro and the Clock Tower. It was refreshing to see a panel of mostly female faces at the press conference instead of the usual line-up of grey-haired men. It's a passionate team, full of enthusiasm, manifested in the high quality of the exhibitions.

Press conference panel under the protective power of the Madonna, from left to right: Daniela Ferretti, Director of the Fortuny Museum; Walter Hartsarich, President of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Angela Vettese, President della Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa di Venezia and collaborator with the Villa Panza di Biumo; Gabriella Belli, Director of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia; Chiara Squarcina, Director of Palazzo Mocenigo and Carlo Goldoni's House.

After the conference I wandered around the Correr, which, too, has been all spruced up, including a new cafe where you can lunch reasonably with a view overlooking Piazza San Marco. And I always love to walk through the newly-restored rooms of my favorite empress, the rebellious Sissi, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, in the Palazzo Reale, and imagine the times when she woke up and looked out upon the gardens here in Venice.

Sissy's bedchamber - Photo: Contessanally

For more information, please visit the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia website.

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog