Art show at Villa Farsetti

In the winter of 2008 I participated in my second art show in Italy. It was a small show with another 9 artists from Padua and Venice that lasted 3 days. The show was sponsored by the Cultural Association “A Se Stante”. It took place in Villa Farsetti at Santa Maria di Salla.
The Farsetti’s were a wealthy Venetian family that loved arts and architecture. Abbate Filippo Farsetti inherited most of his wealth from the Archbishop of Ravenna in 1741. He became an art collector and received permission from Pope Benedict IV to make plaster copies of the best known statues of ancient and modern sculpture. He also purchased terracotta models by 17th and 18th century masters like Bernini and Algardi. With these treasures he founded in 1755 The Farsetti Museum in Venice, which strove to promote the study of ancient and modern Roman sculpture. It was a famous museum at the time, housed in the Palazzo that belonged to the Famous Doge Enrico Dandolo (leader of the Fourth Crusade and the sacking of Constantinople).
During his life Filippo Farsetti also planned and constructed Villa Farsetti (where my show took place) in Santa Maria di Sala. It was to be a Museum-Villa inspired on the Roman ruins of Villa Adriana and the Villa d’Este. The Farsetti collection was bequeathed in 1800 to Emperor Paul I of Russia as a gift from Anton Francesco Farsetti, the last member of the family. The collection currently resides at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
Villa Farsetti had many distinguished guests, including the sculptor Canova and Napoleon. It eventually fell into disrepair and was used as hospital and animal stalls (What was it with the 1800’s that palaces were used as animal stalls? Why not use them for convents, schools, or party halls?) Later the Villa was given to the City of Santa Maria di Salla and is currently undergoing restoration.
The Villa is available for art exhibits, weddings and all such events. The day before the show we came to set up our exposition panels. Rooms were randomly assigned to the participants. We covered the panels with Kraft paper, tied them and arranged them. Then we hung chains from the top of the panels and from there hung the paintings. Easels were used in all other spaces. These simple steps took all day and were exhausting. The villa’s heating system was broken and we were freezing.
Unbeknown to the couple whose wedding was to take place on Saturday, their wedding hall was now filled with amateur paintings. It appears the Villa administration got their dates mixed up. The bride came to check out the place and was very gracious, showing no concern at all for the paintings; in fact she liked them and requested all be left in place. Amazingly Italian response, in the US there would have been tears and lawsuit threats. We joined the wedding party and were even treated to appetizers and wine. The rest of the day was slow and accented by trips to the nearest caffé to imbibe the marvelous Italian espresso (called simply caffé in Italy).
The other artists were interesting. There was Lucio Trabucco, an accomplished artist with an impressive list of art shows and prizes. He does landscapes of the region with strong palette work and a mixture of acrylic and oil paint; great stuff. Then there was Bruno Boschin who also did landscapes, very nice and with good technique. He was very funny and kept us laughing with his commentary. Luana Segato, my friend and colleague from the Graphics art school in Venice had a series of watercolors and oils inspired on Venetian landscapes. There was also Giuseppe Craca, a young photographer whose subject was musicians playing Jazz. He wants to travel to Detroit to see the cradle of techno music. Nanci Edmund is an Albanian-Italian who showed portraits and still life, strong also. He was very nice to talk to, gave me some good advice about my art. His exhibit was next to mine and he told me lots of people stopped to see my cells. He said people were a little shocked when they read the captions of “HIV sprouts from infected cell”, “intestinal villi” and the like. He said I should not say what the paintings represented “it freaked people out”. I told him that was the whole point of the series, show people what they are made of, what goes on under the skin and how wonderful it is. But maybe I should work on the conveyance of the message. He and most people liked “Intestinal vili” best. I also like them the most. Maybe I’ll make a big one.
Vittorio Businari and Gianni Libralesso were pretty good impressionist landscape artist with a long career and even a published book. Francesco Andolfato did mirror etching, very hard work. Andrea Marchi did large cartoons in oil and even a pretty scary lion with fake fur and all. Maria Grazia Minto did Dolls and decorative art. There were also other artists who came at the last minute and where allowed to show some pieces. One had large woodcut naïve portraits; another artist had abstract images hard to describe; another pieces with glass and yellow frames. There was also a mosaic artisan who brought lots of pieces and even demonstrated his work.
Luana and I being the “young women” were given the task of a Beneficence raffle for a Children’s hospital. People would come in, get a rolled up ticket for a Euro and when they opened it there would find what prize they got. They were to get pizza, gelato, flowers, or a gift basket. Loosers would get a pen. The president of the association was so crazy about the raffle that on the last day we even went to the Radichio Festival next door to sell the tickets from table to table during lunch. We of course had some food there that was quite good but I was not able to find any Radicchio in it. It was very funny.
The second day we were so cold we decided to bring heaters to the place. Unfortunately the overload crashed the electricity for a while just when most people were arriving for the day. We had to get an emergency electrician to fix the mess. On Saturday and Sunday we had a mixed crowd; some just walked by with barely a glance, many attracted to the most corny stuff. Others were very engaging and interested, other wanted demonstrations of drawing or mosaic cutting. On the last day we had lots of visitors. The Monday (Holiday) crowd was to me the most engaging.
It was a fun experience.