A Purchase This Weekend

I bought this painting in Brera on Sunday. (It caught my eye on Saturday... I'm happy I decided to go back on Sunday and look for it!) The painter is Claudio Di Costanzo. His wife was the one selling the pictures! Anyway, I wanted something to remind me of Milan when I go home.



This is a small painting, maybe 16 by 8 inches or so. If I had more room in my luggage... The larger paintings were really lovely too. I picked this one out of the smaller ones on display because I love the trams here, and there's just the hint of the Duomo in the background. Ah, Milano...

Dracula

Been having a good, busy weekend. My friend Stan was here for just one night, in the middle of a trip. (He's already in Provence at this point!) We had a quick visit yesterday and today. Stan's been here in Milan a lot before, he actually lived here a few years as a kid and has come back for visits every few years, so we didn't have to do the "typical" sights. After having lunch in Brera, we headed over to the Triennale. The latest special exhibit is on Dracula. It's a bit of an odd exhibit, not completely dedicated to one aspect of Dracula, but not quite a themed art show.

The first section was about the history and myth of Dracula and vampires, building up to how Bram Stoker broke through by connecting Vlad the Impaler to vampirism. This part had lots of informative text, and historic artifacts including old books on Vlad, on vampires, vampire charms, and Ottoman arms and armor. It talked about Stoker's research, portrayals of vampires in his day, and ended with the first edition copy he gifted to his mom. So that was a very factual (in the sense it explained where the fiction came from) part.

Next, some mixed media video installations. A "peephole" vampires' kiss montage, a vampire home with descriptive video, and a large multi-screen installation with a history of vampire movies.

Then, an exhibit on vampire costumes. This had an original Francis Ford Coppola Dracula armor set, and a pretty good video on the costume design of the movie with a lot of direct commentary from the designer herself, Eiko Ishioka.



This was followed by costumes for female "vamps" from theater, opera, and screen. There was also an odd exhibit of comic panels by a famous Italian comic artist that he had done for his own private collection of one of his famous heroines meeting Dracula.

I liked the exhibit overall, but I had expected more of a straight contemporary art show... After we walked around the castle.



We headed in toward the Duomo, and had a little shopping and light dinner at La Rinascente. Cioccolati Italiani for dessert!

Addio Anno 70

Thursday I had a guest chilling with me, Maxim from Moscow, who had just completed his 3000 km ride from Moscow to Milan, on his pretty excellent fixie!



He spent some time visiting his sponsors during the day, so I headed to the Palazzo Reale after work. I hadn't been to the palace before and wanted to check out the exhibit on Milanese art in the 70's. There was lots of photography and video alongside mixed media pieces. Half the attraction, though, is just enjoying the palace!

Triennale

Blake and I visited the Triennale while he was here. Almost all of the exhibits were new since the last time I visited. The primary exhibit, the design exhibition, had changed to the new edition. The last one was furniture, the new one is graphic design, with the focus really on text and graphic identity.



The exhibit includes typefaces, magazines and books with a focus on covers, posters, brand identity items, and even video graphics such as station bumps and intro sequences. These safety posters were cute to me!



We saw pretty much all the exhibits in the museum, which included Gérard Rancinan's The Trilogy of the Moderns, and an exhibit of modern material samples. This piece below is actual alligator skin, treated to translucency!

Art

So the reason I headed up was actually to see my friend Blake's art show. He was participating in the XI Edizione del Simposio Siviera, the title of the symposium was "I love.it" There were nine artists total participating in the symposium. The opening reception was at Casa Giulia along the shore in Verbania Pallanza, a pretty great setting.



Blake had a very prolific week. I couldn't believe how many works he completed for the symposium! It was a very successful show, he even sold the work up top here.



The opening was pretty well attended, and there was even a band.



After we went for dinner with Susanne, the artist in the green clogs in the first photo, and her husband, and then headed down to the train station courtesy of one of the symposium organizers, Amedeo. It was a great night, and boy were we tired when we got on the train heading home.

Novecento

Novecento is the "new" modern art museum of Milan. It's down on the Piazza del Duomo, connected to the Palazzo Reale. Blake and I visited last Sunday in the late afternoon and early evening. The place is pretty huge. This piece below is one of the first we saw, part of a sort of mixed media introductory exhibit. Motor oil drowning a clay city.



I had always known the museum was there on the square because of this large neon sculpture you can see quite easily.



The main exhibit of permanent collection works is grouped by movement. There's a small international works grouping, but the whole thing is very Italian focused, with rooms dedicated to individual movements or even individual artists. The museum started at Futurism, and got up to 70's-ish in the timeline. The last room or so was Arte Povera.

Saturday!

Saturday we had a relatively relaxed day. We headed to the castle to actually head into the museums. Good thing, it was a rainy day!



We went to some of the collections I had seen before, like the objects of art. (Including this terrifying devil automaton.)



And some collections I hadn't seen, including the musical instruments, the tapestries, and the ceramics. This crab sculpture is giant, by the way.



It lightened up a little when we made it over to have a pizza lunch on Via Dante.



In the evening we walked over to St. Ambrogio to check out the church, and then headed home in the evening for a little bit of yummy dinner! We had stuffed gnocchi...

Giò Pomodoro Again

These three are clustered together in a weird nook in my building. The first is "Hermes con Verga", Hermes with his staff.



These next two are both just titled "Arco". I like these ones, they are pleasantly abstract.

More Gio

There are actually a huge number of these Giò Pomodoro sculptures in my building. I do like a lot of them. This one is one of my favorites.



It's entitled "Folla", which means a crowd, like of people. This next one is "Marat", I think we are talking about Jean-Paul Marat. This is definitely a similar depiction of a person as in the Castor and Pollux sculpture shown before.



My friends Esther and Tom are here visiting this weekend, so you may not hear much from me in the next few days!

Venice, Day Two

Sunday the 19th was a full day in Venice for us. We decided to walk the city. We walked up through the Ghetto Ebraico and along the north coast of the city, through Castello, to Arsenale, where we had lunch.



The usual fun of Venice is looking at the architecture and the details. This was an awesome door pull we passed.



Costumed folks were already out on the streets in the morning, we saw a lot on our strolls.



There are a few hospitals in Venice, and one of them is on the north coast. They have ambulance boats... since nothing else would make sense in Venice, really.



Every little piazza had a few costumed characters in it.



Our evening was spent at La Fenice, seeing Cosi fan Tutte. Wow, it's really beautiful on the inside. The boxes are beautiful!



Here's Ross in ours. Each box has four chairs, two in front, two in back. Hooks for the coats, a mirror for getting beautiful. The theater was rebuilt recently, you can tell by the installation of the fire equipment!



And of course, the famous sign.



The opera was a lot of fun. Having a private box does make it more pleasant!

On our walk home, we went over the Rialto bridge. This was another great costume we saw on the way home.



And this glass art really cracked up both me and Ross!



We had dinner at a pizza place that was really tasty, and got to bed at a decent hour!

Ross in Milan

Ross and I had a pretty relaxed time while he was in Milan.

On Valentine's Day, we did a little shopping and relaxed, then went out to dinner at Platz, a restaurant recommended by my landlord and his wife. They are known for their pizzas and their gnoccho frito. We had both! They also have a special page on their menu dedicated to porcini mushrooms, so we had porcini toasts. I think I need to start buying porcini mushrooms. They don't seem to be in season now, but you can buy jarred or frozen chunks to add to things... On our walk to the restaurant we saw this cute fisherman street mural.



Wednesday I had to head to work for a bit, as we were getting a new machine delivered. Boy, that was a pain! With all the things that didn't work out as planned, we are lucky we got the thing moved into place with nothing wrong!



In the afternoon, Ross and I headed to the Triennale. There were a few little shows on, including an exhibit on women's skin and beauty through the years, old photos from the archives, newspaper photos, Serbian design... Of course, the highlight is in many ways the furniture design collection.



They go nuts for Philippe Starck.



It was a fun evening.



We ended it by having wine and nibbles at La Rinascente on the roof. Because of the cold temps, we were the only people out there, but I really think the Italians are a little wimpy about that sort of stuff!

London Part 4

Monday last, I spent the morning in class with Miranda (the history of medieval Scotland) and then headed to Brixton to meet up with Peter. I got the full tour of his neighborhood! He's got a lot of his work in his studio, I got to see the wide variety.



He's a part of the Artichoke Print Workshop, which we visited in the afternoon. It's a large shop with several serious presses.



Peter makes lots of trouble in the studio!



Miranda and I decided to grab dinner at Wasabi, a Japanese fast chain. I really liked the food, and the variety of choices was quite impressive. You can buy single rice balls or single nigiri or two-packs of little maki roll bites, adding it up to a meal, or large soups and large dinner plates or bowls or salads and garnish with some little stuff. Downsides: you have to pay for individual soy sauce packets (a few p.) and like many English fast food places, you have to pay extra to sit at a table, even though they don't really serve you or anything.



We also bought some candy bars on the side for our night at the theater... They were all actually quite good.



We were at the Aldwych to see "A Round-Heeled Woman" with Sharon Gless...



Another fun night!

Castello Sforzesco Museum

I finally made it to the museums at the Castello Sforzesco yesterday. I will have to go back again, though, because the three hours I spent wasn't enough to see all the different parts of the museum. I spent my time in the sculpture gallery and the decorative arts gallery.



The highlight of the sculpture gallery is Michelangelo's unfinished pieta. It's set aside in its own display area, so you can take it in alone. The pose is interesting, not a typical pieta. Michelangelo changed the pose after half-finishing the sculpture, so there's a duplicate arm that is still in place.



The galleries, being in the rooms of the castle itself, also have a lot "ambient" decoration, decorative frescoes, particularly. This includes stuff by da Vinci. This sketch is in a large room, where da Vinci did the original work, but the bulk of the ceiling was retouched later in a sort of garish way. The walls, however, bear some original sketches.



I also spent some time in the decorative arts gallery. This glass is for the original Sforza family, made in part in Murano.



Anyway, it was a pretty cool trip to the museum, and really, I think I will have to go back again some day. Perhaps on a Friday afternoon, when it's free...

At the Triennale

The Triennale is Milan's big modern art and design museum. I visited this weekend, and it was awesome. I went on a whim, I was going to go to the museums at Castello Sforzesco, but I decided at the last minute that I would go one subway stop further and head to the Triennale. It was an excellent choice on my part. The Triennale has several exhibition spaces that cycle at different rates. They don't let you take photos of the art, but they do let you take photos of the design.

The first exhibit I visited was art on time. A lot of the pieces were very awesome. Many of them were unconventional clocks. One of my favorites was a clock that was a calender on a roll that fed into a shredder. There was also a pretty awesome giant clock that looked like it stepped out of JT and Madonna's "4 Minutes" video. There was some cool video installations. I was not a fan of the Damien Hirst spin paintings that were in there. I prefer his grotesque vitrines. The spin paintings just look like any other craft spin art.

I also visited the installation of sculpture art by Italian artists from about 1965 on. This took up about half of the museum. Honestly, I quite liked many of the pieces. This sculpture art is very design and architecture informed. Some were kinetic, and many were plugged in or used water. One artist I liked that had several pieces in the show had exposed freezer coils in different shapes. One artist did a lot of work with standing water. My favorite from that set was a huge braided copper wire rope, suspended from the ceiling, along with big sheets of stainless steel that were draped to form shallow trays on the floor, with each end of the wire rope in one of the trays, each full of a different acid, one creating a blue oxide, the other a yellow-green oxide. I spent a lot of time in these galleries.

The place where you can take pictures is the furniture gallery. It was a very packed gallery! And you were allowed to touch and sit in many of the pieces. They were all pieces made in Italy, mostly designed by Italians, again from 1965 or so on. Some of the pieces were very normal, some very fantastical!

This chair I've seen in Forbes Life. It's folded structural felt. And seriously, it is a multi-thousand dollar chair.



And then there's lamps like this.



I have one of these in my apartment! Is mine a knock-off? I am going to give it a closer look tomorrow. Seriously though, look at yesterday's post. There's one of these lamps in my bedroom.

I thought these kids' furniture dogs were cute.



Here's me relaxing in a woven chair.



Anyway, I spent a very long afternoon there. It was great!