Arts Alive!

This past week has been a week dedicated to the art scene of Italy. We began the week with two of Fellini's most famous films, "La Dolce Vita" and "8 1/2", which would inspire the musical and later the movie "Nine". On Wednesday we had the cultural experience of a lifetime: American Artist Fred Wilson came to Casa Artom to talk with our class about his life of art. His presentation was arguably the shortest two hours I have ever sat for as he dived into telling us about his work in the 2003 Venice Biennale and then an exhibit he created for the Contemporary and Maryland Historical Society entitled "Mining the Museum" highlighting the history of African Americans in Maryland.
Friday half of us were scheduled to go to the Police Station in mainland Venice, outside of Mestre, where we would apply for our residency permit. The bureaucracy was comparable to the friendly atmosphere of a DMV, except far worse. After 4 hours of waiting we finally made it in and got our full hand prints taken and successfully acquired our residency permit. That night we had our third family dinner of Rob's family recipe of chicken picata with pasta,  Mrs. Lubin's fresh garlic spinach bought at the market that morning, and my great aunt's recipe of peach cobbler. Since I had to double the cobbler recipe to accommodate the gorgeous selection of huge peaches Kim and Mrs. Lubin had procured at the Rialto market, needless to say the cobbler took more than twice as long to cook and an hour after dinner we decided to take it out of the oven nonetheless and enjoy a rather soupy but still flavorful cobbler.
Since we had all decided to stay in Venice we ended up meeting with some Americans hailing from both Duke and BC later that night at a pub near the Rialto Bridge. The following morning Kelly and I took full advantage of Casa Artom's two gratuitous passes to the Peggy Guggenheim Museumr. We spent the morning and early afternoon at the museum completely stunned by the collection and the palace that was Peggy's final resting place. Peggy's ashes lie in the courtyard of the museum alongside her most beloved, her dogs. When we returned to the house, our whole group and the Lubins decided to watch Nine which dovetailed our film lesson of the week as it was a rather gloomy day and no one really wanted to leave the confines of our palazzo. To continue with our arts collection of the weekend, we hit up the Stanley Kubrick photography exhibition right across the Accademia bridge at the Instituto Veneto di Scienze. The palace adorned with incredible Murano glass chandeliers which were equally as impressive as the exhibit itself.
One more week before our 10 day break touring Spain where I can actually speak the language!