The Jewish Experience Part 2 and The Next Group

The Jewish Experience in Italy, Part 2 came off without much of a hitch. It was, as expected, quite informative as many people have told me so far. The only major, glaring error that I committed was referring to the experience of visiting the Ghetto in Venice on December 31, when I meant to say May 31. The broadcast, otherwise was perfect, with Ellen doing her usual beautiful job. I was also miffed, because my sport jacket was bunched up in the back, a recurrent problem, which Ellen is constantly reminding me about. This was more obvious because the jacket is a light color which made it more obvious to the viewer. Nonetheless, since I am convinced that I can never do a "perfect" show, I will take this. I am now not sure where to go with this, except that a friend of mine told me to begin to lecture on the topic in various venues throughout the Hudson Valley. Don't know about that, especially if my time becomes consumed with working at some college teaching mathematics once again. I am also running for the Woodstock Artists Association Board of Directors next month, and if I win a position will also occupy some space in my calendar.

I must now start to think about the next group of shows. I have three almost totally prepared on the Venice Biennale beginning with our experience at the Palazzo Bembo Exhibition that Laura was part of. In that regard I have an introductory show which talks a little about the Global Art Affairs Foundation and their founder, Rene Rietmeyer. I then take the viewer to the palazzo as we had first seen it aboard a boat pulling up at the vaporetto stop just to the north of the palazzo, then down the street, and into the building. Then a brief tour of the exhibit's second floor, followed by a wonderful interview with the President of the GAAF, Karlyn Dejongh. She also interprets her art which was also part of the exhibition. The show will then turn to a gallery talk by one of the great artists in the exhibition, Sam Jinks, who came to Venice with his family. He interprets his work and answers some questions from the audience.

Subsequent shows will focus on the 15 interviews I did with artists in the exhibition, dividing them up into two consecutive shows. They are fascinating interviews with people from all over the world standing near their work talking about their method, technique, and ideas. Then I hope Laura and I can sit down and plan for a fourth show which focusses on the other part, main part of the Venice Biennale, which occurs at Arsenale and Giardini. We will take the ones we liked the best and show photos and videos. It might even turn out to be two shows, but it is impossible to tell before the planning process begins. Now that Laura is finished with her own project of creating her art, she can give me some time.

The either four or five shows will constitute my presentation of the 55th Venice Biennale giving a very good view to my audience of what we saw. Unfortunately, because of our commitments while in Venice we could not do justice to the Collateral Events (other than the Palazzo Bembo). There were a total of 48 of these of which we only saw two, perhaps three. Just not enough time in a week. Had we stayed an additional few days, we could have documented most of the total Biennale.