Extraordinary Artists on Shows # 71 and # 72

It gives me great pleasure to indicate two of the artists whom I video taped at the Palazzo Bembo in May. I have yet to hear from all of the eight, but I can now say that Suh Jeong Min, Triny Prada, Herre Methorst, and Djawid Borower, who all appear on Show # 71, have given their approvals to indicate their names on my blog, Youtube uploads, website, etc. For Show # 72 Chris Fraser, Monika Thiele and Chen ping are among those featured. I await more responses, but until them, if you wish to check them out, please feel free to view Alan's Italy Show # 71 on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsuGTxQFu40 and Show # 72  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh7_7BNXOXA

Alan's Italy Show # 70 To Be Re-done

Those of you who might want to see Show # 70: The Venice Biennale, Palazzo Bembo, Part 1 for the first time or perhaps again will not be able to do that. The show has been removed from Youtube and is being created all over again. We are going to do a better job with the Gallery Talk during the final segment showing the artist in a small frame, with the sculpture to which he is referring in the large frame. There will also be several other modifications. We are going to create a new show, and without actually being broadcast, I will go back to the studio and do it all over again. That edition of Show # 70 will then be uploaded to Youtube to take the place of the old version. It's a long story, but we just wanted the Gallery Talk to be better and since we have the ability to do that, we felt that it would be a better representation.

Venice Biennale Part 2

Positively flawless as far as I can tell, and no negatives. Savor the moment, I kept telling myself. Then again how can a show go bad when the art of stunning magnitude is shown and explained by the actual artists. Wonderful people from all over the world, whose names I will reveal as I begin to get their permission. The only minor flaw was that I show a photo of Monet's Rouen Cathedral at different times of the day, before I showed the video of Atelier Morales discussing his work in relation to the famous impressionist artist. My original intent had been to show the Monet piece, mention what it was, in case my audience had trouble recognizing it, and then relating it to Atelier. However, I forgot that and we heard the Atelier gallery talk and then I showed the Monet piece. Atelier, however, did a fine job of explaining how his work was related to Monet's, so it worked out alright.

I can only spend some time talking about how wonderful the artists were, personable, charming, knowledgeable, and, of course, extremely creative and talented. I thank all eight of them en masse and hope to gain permission over the next few days to talk about their work a little more. If anyone wishes to explore their work further or contact them with questions, the lists of artists is displayed throughout the show.

Next week I will be taking off, but we resume on Friday, August 2 with eight additional artists. Then we will take a break from the Venice Biennale, but eventually come back when Laura and I have organized a show on the Arsenale/Giardini part in the next few weeks. In the meantime I have three already prepared shows, one on Venice Neighborhoods (Show # 73), The Story of the Three Hotels we stayed in Venice, a very interesting story (Show # 74), and a show devoted to what Italy looks like at night, especially Venice, but also many other places throughout the country (Show # 75). Then who knows I have several more partially planned on a variety of places, mostly in Tuscany, studies of famous art, and some more interviews with people we encountered during our last trip to Italy.

The Venice Biennale

This is the show to which I was really looking forward, the beginning of the series on the 55th Venice International Exposition, known as the Venice Biennale. In my haste to get the Global Art Affairs Foundation's Palazzo Bembo Collateral Event into the schedule as early as possible, so that most of the duration of the exhibition will still be left (it runs to November 24), I placed this early in my series of shows on our last Italy trip. Rather than wait for us to organize all the Venice Biennale pictures in good order, I started the process with a few photos, but all of our videos of the Palazzo Bembo part. Labeled as the Venice Biennale, Palazzo Bembo, Parts 1, 2 and 3 viewers will see what a well-known, extensive, and brilliant exhibition at the Biennale looks like first hand. I discard a couple of videos, because there was too much extraneous noise, or some other reason, and wound up with a total of 19 videos organized into the three shows. This first program represents a nice introduction complete with some footage of the Grand Canal, the overview of the second floor of the exhibition, an interview with the President of the Foundation, Karlyn Dejongh, and an extensive gallery talk by one of the participating artists. The next two broadcasts Friday, July 19 and Friday, August 2 (skipping a week) will feature short gallery talks (anywhere from four minutes to more than eight minutes) of 16 artists from all over the world. It will be very special because the videos are a creation of not only me, but the artists as well. The people are charming, interesting, and fascinating representatives of their special brand of magnificence. I will not be able to indicate in this blog who are there until I get their permission to use their names. The art is very special and the interviews are very much Alan's Italy, a relaxed, down-home, informal jaunt through the wonders of Italy.

Of course, nothing I ever do occurs easily and this show was no exception. During the presenting of one of the videos, I noticed a period of several seconds when I spoke some words that I didn't wish to broadcast. My intention had been, before the show when I was putting the whole thing together, to mute the sound for the period of perhaps 15 or 20 seconds, but, alas, forgot. Even though the show had already gone out to my local audience, since not too many people watch the show live (if any ! actually most watch it locally in the repeat mode during the following week), the most important thing was that those few seconds be removed, or certainly the audio part. The whole weekend I had two computer specialists try to figure out how to mute that brief segment and they failed in their attempts, and then asked my engineer to do the whole show over with me on Monday. That was accomplished a few hours ago, and was the reason why this blog, as well as the posting of the Youtube video, was delayed. As I write this, the video is uploading to Youtube. Whew ! Yet another adventure in broadcasting.

Please tune in to Alan's Italy Show # 70, which should be there soon, and also look out for # 71 and 72. These three shows and others on the main part of the Venice Biennale at Arsenale and Giardini will provide a really excellent survey of what the visitor gets to see at this incredible international exhibition.

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.