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Arrived in Venice in soaking rain, confronted with a sea of umbrellas. A ten-minute sodden trudge found us at our new home. And in the middle of the action, only five minutes from the Rialto. Happily, on the ground floor without any stairs at all. Ground floor in Venice is sometimes beneath the waves. In our case ground-floor is above the waves most of the time. Blocks under some of the nicer furniture and tell-tale rust marks reveal the need for caution at very high tide. There is now provision at our front door for inserting a temporary barrier. So it would be theoretically possible to open the door inward and step out over the barrier into knee deep water. Worried? Never! We have wifi and hot water in-house. Wonder what the super mart, deli and cafe will do?.

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The Venetians have ways of getting things done in spite of the difficulties imposed by the canal system. The only wheeled vehicles on the islands are wheel barrows. So, everything has to be delivered by boat, by wheel barrow or hefted over the shoulder. Building materials, groceries, tourist nick knacks, rubbish. Everything. Our personal gondola launching pad has been taken over by a team of builders. The scaffolding and planks dumped on the landing, to be man-handled away by the hard hats. The building next door seems to need roofing repairs, some four or five floors above the river – depending on whether or not the flooded basement is counted. Point is, there is nothing but water on which to base the scaffolding. The solution is to bolt the scaffolding onto the wall, about 3 floors above water level. Missed seeing them install the brackets. Sky hook? 30 ft. ladder on a row boat? You have to believe that they know what they are doing. Oc. health and safety is hard hats and waving the tourists out of the way.

Arp at the Peggy G

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In Venice for the Biennale, where artists aspiring to be best in the world come to show their wares. We come here to be challenged, confronted, educated, amused and inspired. It is exhausting work but we have succeeded. In no position to compare and contrast the value of the material. Sometimes not sure what is an installation and what is just a piece of machinery in an empty room. Some the video presentations were genuinely moving, with others, the camera might have just been accidently left running. Maybe that is actually sometimes art. Nah, don’t think so. The following notes record a few of the things that moved us.

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Ghana, the first black African country to achieve independence, this year was the first black African country to have a pavilion at the biennale. An enormous expanse of wall hanging with hundreds of thousands of tiny elements painstakingly joined with fine copper wire by a team of 25 workers. Speaks of skill, patience, persistence, cooperation and vision. In the next room photos of many proud, well-mannered, civilised matriarchs presents another aspect of Ghana culture.

At one installation, there are three large round glass topped pedestals. Shoes off, you can stand on the glass and have the optical illusion of looking through mirror glass past repeating bits and pieces down into a bottomless hole. Curiously, in the third pedestal, the bits don’t repeat and the display appears to actually end very deep beneath the floor. Optical trick or using an actual hole in the floor?

Jeppe Hein placed his sculpture out in the open. With no obvious title, the public were often not aware that it is an exhibit. Grown ups found many comfortable places to lounge and the kiddies were also impressed. Definitely art.

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A simple variation on the Moebius loop caught our eye. Ingeniously made of 2 colours of hose pipe to confuse as to what is actually happening. Again, ticks for concept, execution, confrontation and humour.

By contrast, the Polish exhibit was an actual plane turned inside out. Probably a twelve seater to give an idea of scale. The artist Roman Stanczak had been mulling over the idea of turning a plane inside out for about 30 years, mainly as a technical challenge. Eventually a plane became available and he used the exercise as a tribute to the fatalities in a presidential plane crash in Smolensk, Russia in 2010. And as a comment on the rift that troubles Polish Society.

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.Still with planes, Yin Xiuzhen constructed a believable life size copy of part of a large jet plane landing gear. On looking closely, it is mostly composed of common domestic hardware. Like little wire handles, a hair dryer and shelf brackets. Would have used a sink plunger, but Dr Who already did that. Perhaps an unusual thing for a woman artist to do, but she likes to work with kitchen bits and pieces.

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wagon heading uphill to liberty & freedom

Title of the Biennale as a whole is May you live in interesting times. The Americans titled their show Liberty. In view of their history – interesting. They showed a number of works expressing the idea of liberty as well as entrapment or slavery. The most telling exhibit was a sort of comfortably upholstered cage. The attendant laughed when it was suggested that this represents the comfortable prison in which many Americans live.

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The Russians and Italians, as usual, put on big displays. The Italians built a Labyrinth where it was possible to either focus on the art work or on how to find a way out. The Russians played the Hermitage card by way of inspiration. But clearly said we would be disappointed if we are looking for trinkets from the Winter Palace. Upstairs, a heavily emotional multi-media portrayal of the return of the tear-away prodigal son to his proud long suffering father. Downstairs, a ballet with 18 life-size shadow puppets operated by noisy hydraulic lifting shafts. Accompaniment – simply the hydraulic noise.

But is it art?