Five days, 12 hours and 10 minutes and I will be La Serenissima in stilettos.  The 55th Venice Biennale inaugurates its pavilions during next week’s press preview  and my heels are in hand, ready for 72 non-stop hours in  Il Palazzo Enciclopedia.   Yes. . .the Biennale is my vision incarnate of heaven:  contemporary art and art watching, fashion and fiction all walking around in a decaying, floating city that loves you or hates you depending on the color of the sky.

If the Biennale is the 7th chakra, then the press preview is a crystal meth ride. Hundreds, if not thousands, of artists, journalists, gallerists, authors, curators, critics, collectors, models, musicians, friends and all of their assistants congregate in Venice’s Biennale Giardini and Arsenale compounds to visit the country pavilions (structures the size of a small duplex at best) and overflow into the city  to the off-site events, bars and restaurants and consistently talking about art and what/who they are seeing.  Every corner is an editorial shoot waiting to happen, and tiny calle are infuriatingly crowded with post-modern fashion and shoes so uncomfortable that you would take them off it no one was around. But every one is, and they never stop.  At night, the Grand Canal is water-taxi game of Frogger with brightly lit  taxis frenetically zipping back and forth to whatever palazzo or yacht party is de rigeur.  And then ricominciamo da capo. . . It’s heady and frustrating and arty and I love it.

To keep up with the Biennale, search hashtag #Venicebiennale on Twitter et al. If you want to know where I am, Twitter is best- @Moscerina, If you want to see what I am doing,  follow me as guest Instagrammer for the lovely ladies of Fathom at @FathomWayToGo.  (There will be some articles to come as well).  And if you want to know what I am thinking,  read The Passion by Jeanette Winterson and watch Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now.

Biennale 2011: Illuminated, 54th Venice Biennale  

Dinosaurs, Donald Duck, Blaxpoitation and a blue Koons. That’s what New York dreams are made of.  Empire State, Palazzo delle Esposizioni’s NYCentric exhibition, opened today where 27 artists from different generations, background and Gotham neighborhoods show off their interpretation of re-imagined urban life, with New York as the conceptual palette.

And ust like New York, Empire State is an attitude. It’s bombastic.  And it’s fun. Maybe because I miss a little of the Big Apple sometimes or maybe I just miss big boys/girls and their big toys, this show brings a much needed kick to Rome’s contemporary art scene, where contemporary art sometimes doesn’t get a smile or a bro hug.   It’s obvious that I loved the Koons and Schnabel pieces, but my heart goes out to the T-Rex and Brontosaurus who watch over a Rob Pruitt painting. Jay-Z said “there’s nothing you can’t do, now you’re in New York*” and he’s right.

through July 21, 2012

Palazzo delle Esposizioni

via Nazionale 194

*In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made, oh
There’s nothing you can’t do, now you’re in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you, let’s hear it for New York
New York, New York
~JAY-Z, Empire State of Mind 2009

Island. Oasis. Hallucination. Somewhere on the north coast of the Yucatan peninsula, I have found my perfect ricarica, a beachy recharge of sun and sand, and ceviche and maragaritas. . . and hammocks. Isla Holbox as I wrote about it on Huffington Post.

PS. I just came across this great Kickstarter project: Soñando per Holbox, where 12 artists from different parts of the world will create 12 murals on Holbox based on the dreams that residents have about the past, present and future of the island. Please take a look.

I made it back to Rome just in time for the last night of Fondazione Alda Fendi’s Inaccessible, an annual performance art event held the last week of Lent at the Antico Mercato del Pesce degli Ebrei, in the Foro Boario.  Each year curator Raffaele Curi and Fendi bombard us with imagery, lighting, sound and performance with the intention of jostling us out of our complacency.  For me, this year’s performance was more uplifting than anything else.  I don’t know if it was a my preconceived mindset – an evening on my own, what could be better?– or the musical score and visual imagery which segued from intense to righteous to celebratory.

Inaccessible/Inaccessible, according to Fendi, is everything and nothing which fits in perfectly with performance art and Fendi Esperimenti- often hard to digest and sometimes hard to find.  But then again, Fendi’s experiments are open to anyone.  This year, the seven- night Inaccessibile included live nude models (a leit motif in the Experiments), an image of a Louise Bourgeois spider sculpture, Christ icon, Masonic triangles, an Athenian warrior, a dwarf, a swiss guard and a recitation of Medea by Francesca Benedetti.  Each performance and image rolled seamlessly into the next, helped by the three large screens where projects coursed counter clockwise.

I walked out smiling. Inaccessible is really everything and nothing, just like art, and including the large cube by architect Jean Nouvel that was placed in the antico mercato’s entrance and was vaguely reminiscent of a Disney character.  As I turned the corner, I breathed in Fendi’s latest project, a rehash of a 5-story palazzo by Nouvel for Fendi’s spazio museale.  And it dawned on me, this is the celebration.  By early summer 2014, Fendi will (hopefully) have added a new dimension to Rome’s artistic landscape with its museum/artists’ studios/concept space. I can’t wait.

Past Fendi Experiments

It is always a pleasure to wake up on a Friday morning to freshly squeezed orange juice, a frothy cappuccino and my writing in print. Today was a double dose of, well, moi.  Earlier in the year,  Discovery Magazine (Cathay Pacific’s newly made over magazine) asked me to contribute a piece about underground Rome.  Easy since the Professor spends more time subterraneous than above ground, right?  Since Underground Rome is one of our favorite dates– and I don’t just mean historically– it was a pleasure to walk through the sites and write about them.  Please enjoy my article Secrets Uncovered– and thank you, Darius Arya, Paul Bennett of Context Travel, Adriano Morabito of Roma Sotterranea and Agnes Crawford of Understanding Rome for liking all of this as much as I do, and even more.

Wait, before you go, I did mention there were two articles.  #2 is my review of Byblos Art Hotel, Verona, for Oryx Magazine. I  consider Byblos Art Hotel the physical embodiment of my heart’s desires-  beautiful contemporary art gallery in a 16th century palazzo.  In pdf/print ready version at Agency Fish/Oryx Magazine website (page 28).

It seems that each time that I walk through Piazza di Spagna, which is almost every week day morning, and I count the boarded-up shop fronts with signs that read “chiusi” “vendita totale” and “prossimamente” (closed, total sale, coming soon).  I’ve been watching the piazza developments probably more  anxiously and eager than a helicopter mom watches her brood in Park Slope.  The upcoming line up reads like the front end ads in Vogue:  Sephora, Nespresso, IWC Schaffausen watches, Versace and potentially another Louis Vuitton in place of Barcaccia.

Before we call foul and cry wolf about Piazza di Spagna impersonating Times Square, let’s take a look around the square:

Piazza di Spagna is not and never has been cento per cento Romana (100% Roman). The name alone should give a clue.  From the mid Renaissance forward, the French and Spanish bickered, with the French eventually taking reign atop the hill at Villa Medici and Trinita di Monti and the Spanish holding steady with their prime piazza presence.  The piazza itself, and surrounding streets have almost always catered to the international community in Rome.  In fact, the British Tea house Babington’s has been on the square since 1893.

It may be all about economics.  Survival of the financial fit.  However, Times Square it is not. Piazza di Spagna is luxury shopping with a broad representation of small and large Italian brands - Missoni, Frette, Sergio Rossi, Moncler, Furla Sermoneta, Alexandra- and non-Italian such as Dior, IWC, Sephora, Camper and Woolrich.   If we must persist in fitting Rome in to the square box of New York terminology, Piazza di Spagna is more like Madison Avenue, with a mix of 5th. (I have to admit I am tired of the comparisons and likewise the never-ending chatter about real Rome- the area has five schools alone and hundreds of families, for realz). What’s happening is a growing up where little Bermuda triangles like Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina, Piazza di Spagna and Piazza Augusto Imperatore are cohesively and dare I say fashionably coming together as the connecting streets are also upgrading shops and quality.  Yes, there is an influx of non-Italian shopping immigration but  is this really bad?  Isn’t part of the appeal and a requirement of a capital city?

The question I was asked by the construction team at the soon-to-be new Barcaccia (yes, it will still be in Piazza di Spagna, just a few doors down), “La piazza sta cambiando per il peggio o il meglio“? (Is the square changing for the better or worse) seems metaphysical. With the elections about to burst and the Pope resigning, Piazza di Spagna may appear to be an insignificant blip on the radar of Italia in crisi.  But it is definitely a reflection of the times.  Piazza di Spagna is changing for the better, which I think is the fading hope for the upcoming elections.  Kind of hope for the best, expect the worse– an expression that seems to overstay its welcome here.  I’ve stuck on my new voting sticker and I’m ready for changes.

The first drink I ever ordered for myself was a glass of vermouth at the age of fifteen, a scene completely robbed from Madeleine L’Engle’s book Camilla, where the 15-year-old protagonist Camilla Dickinson daintily drinks the clear liquor  in an attempt to be adult. I downed it like a glass of water (mistake) and thought I was dying. But from that moment on, I liked the idea of  leaning forward on the bar, talking to the bartender and holding a pretty glass in my hand for an hour.  And I liked drinks with names.

After years of standing at the bar,  I realise that I can geo-tag the most significant eras of my life to any drink menu– Long Island Iced Tea means college in Philadelphia, a Mojito is Miami, the Cosmopolitan, Rob Roy and Gimlet are Los Angeles, the Spritz will always be Venice and last week’s Manhattan is Rome.  As in most cases, wine, prosecco and franciacorta were my Italy– it has not been until recently that cocktails have appeared on my mental mixology chronology in Rome.  It’s not that Italy was late to the game, it’s just that I was too preoccupied with grapes and the like to step up to the bar.

Italy makes cocktails, and I am particularly fond of discovering where they make them well.  Like most of you, I have my list of go-to places where I am assured that the Manhattan, Negroni and Martinez I will be drinking will be perfect, and the bartenders even more so. But I am always looking for more.  Last month, Rome’s Micca Club hosted Diageo Reserve World Class 2013  semi-finals for mixology and I spent an afternoon watching 12 men and women compete to be called the best bartender.

Competitors from Italy’s southern regions– Tuscany to Sicily-   presented cocktails and atmosphere inspired by Hollywood’s golden age with a side of the Rat Pack.  From nervous and serious to joking and flirty, the bartenders brought it full force.  Drinks were well researched and artistically prepared.  Presentation included a bit of story-telling and Hollywood/Italy history.  Although I was rooting for neighbourhood favorite Antonio Parlapiano from Jerry Thomas Project, I was happy to see Micca Club’s Daniele Gentili win– he mixed charm, humor and gin to create “Frankie Loves Rome”, a delicious, cappuccino-styled cocktail of Tanqueray No. 10, meringue, lime and Frangelico.  Semi-finals continue in Milan at the end of April, and then Gentile and the other semi-finalist will throw down cocktails in Madrid for title of Italy’s best bartender.  That finalist will then compete with 31 bartenders from around the world in July’s World Class Bartending Final in Barcelona.

It’s beginning to look like bartenders may be this year’s celebrity chefs– a kind of Cocktail (yep, I’m thinking Tom Cruise) reboot where bartenders are artists, bars are beautiful and the stemware is divine. I say Cin Cin! Here are my suggestions for best cocktails in Rome (for Forbes’ Startle.com).

Notes:

Here are my favorite bars in Rome for Forbes.

Parlafood and Dissapore (Italian) share their best for spots for cocktails.

I love my city and I love evolution, but sometimes that intimate mix can spawn bizarre progeny when in Rome.  At the end of spring, I  kept stumbling across Coming Soon/Prossimamente signs promoting new gelaterie.  Campo de’ Fiori, once known for the flower and fruit market, now for its evening debauchery, used to claim only two gelato shops  in its proximity– a double scoop, so to speak, of the ubiquitous, tasteless Blu Ice on a side street leading to Campo.  Next thing I know, the multi-chain Flor camped out on a Campo corner, bio-chain Grom down the street on via dei Giubbonari, and finally a follow-up Corona moved in on Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Overnight, Campo became overflowing with more families than ever before, not to mention its gelato-cupped filled trashcans, and then some.

It’s not just Campo and it’s not just gelato, the centro storico has been re-populated with gelaterie, parrucchieri (via dei Coronari, known for its antique shops, has undergone a make over with several stores reinvented as hairdressers),  and now paninoteche. Tens of sandwich-focused boutiques (from Subway chains and faux boulangerie to boutique burgers and mod salumerie) have popped up throughout the entire city.  Within walking distance of Campo alone, there are at least three new gourmet sandwicherie:  Ferrarini, Panepìu, and now Cotto. I am seeing a lot of white tiles, glistening counter-tops, snappy packaging and stylized chalk lettering.  Whereas I am not a girl to shy away from a good sandwich, I am trying to figure what this means to a country in crisis.

Is this one of the many side effects of gastro-tourism, where the world expects Rome, and Italy, to put a perennial smile and continuously proffer prosciutto, parmigiano and pasta?  Or is this simply the Italian translation of the Lipstick Index? When times get tough, we soothe ourselves with a piega (blow out) and a sandwich with a side of pistachio gelato?  As Bob Dylan once said, the times, they are a changin’.  In what direction, we can only guess.  Though I hope and want for the best, we need group effort, not just good hair and a tasty bite.

Food for thought: Girlfriend in a Coma, the aptly-named document critically inspecting Italy of recent decades, including former PM Silvio Berlusconi and his reign, has had its Italian premiere revoked by MAXXI, as Giovanna Melandri, MAXXI’s newly named presiden explained,  ”I said no to the February 13 because I am convinced that it is my duty to keep the national elections outside of the Maxxi, a public museum.”

Photo by Cappiello via Instagram

The other day, my younger sister asked me about Instagram. More specifically, she asked me why I felt the urge to post photos (low res, unplanned and primarily for my pleasure only) that the Man– at the time of said questioning– may or may not feel like taking advantage of. I laughed and told her that much like our long ago afternoons of yoga and cigarettes, Instagram is my meditation so who cares.

“Meditation in the palm of my hands” may have been my exact phrase, stated slightly condescendingly as only an older sister can.  But it’s true, hand-eye coordination has been the only way I’ve ever been able to slow down the mind and just relax.  This is just the first time I’ve done it with my phone.  Part visual game, part thrill seeking, I love losing myself in photos.  And when I’m in the deepest throws of insomnia, I’ve taken to traveling the world on a magic carpet of hashtags– which answers another question I was also asked “will I write a follow up to Traveling via Instagram“?  Here’s the six month skinny:

Instagram has so many great photographers and photographs on a variety of levels, themes and perspectives, that I am either recycling, reviewing or discovering.  I constantly change my mind on who I love, like and follow, like a 15 year old watching the varsity soccer team for the first time.  True, I’ll always have a crush on the photos of @SamHorine and @Cucinadigitale, who bring New York and Rome to my phone on a silver platter, but there’s always room for more.

Tags:  #typography #artwatchers #bicichic #jumpstagram #puglife

Users: cappiello,  shaynabatya, tomwhite_, Gummyting, allimcbutter, legojacker (and anyone else creating sets with Lego figurines), swerved, and unique_lapin. And oh yeah, my kid sister, Itinerantme, so I can keep tabs on her as she meanders around Southeast Asia.

PS. Instagram provides a lovely Suggested Users List with an ever updated rotation of  favorites.

[photo by Nicolee Drake]

If anyone cares to know what I want to do with my life, this is it: interview artists atop public art installations, preferably monumental in size. And to be honest,  I think I am doing my best to make sure this happens.  At the end of last month, photographer Nicolee Drake and I climbed to the top of Big Bambù, an over 100 foot tall whirlwind of bamboo created by Doug and Mike Starn for MACRO Testaccio and ENEL Contemporanea.  We went back two more times.  You should go too, you’ll probably catch me lying around . . .

Big Bambù opens today and will be up forever. For more information on the exhibition, please read my latest piece in BBC Travel.  And if you won’t be able to climb, take a look through Nicolee’s lens-  cucinadigitale.com and Tumblr.

[Photo by Marco Moscato] Me and Nicolee

In action.