Venice Trip: Peggy Guggenheim Collection

All around the city, there were men selling Chicki Chickis, little moldable balls of something. James couldn't resist any longer and bought one.  The next morning, he informed me that the chicki chickis were stuffed with flour.  "Do you know how I know this?" he asked.  He went on to tell us how his burst open in his hotel room upstairs and he ended up with flour all over his shirt and pants.

Google "activities for kids in Venice" and you'll be sure to see the suggestion "Visit the Peggy Guggenheim Collection." One website said the museum was "a fabulous collection of surrealist modern art-- perhaps the most interesting sort of art for young minds, with fantastical creatures and landscapes and animals flying through the sky. Outside is a lovely sculpture garden, where kids can run around." We still had a few hours until dinner (it felt much later since we had gotten such an early start this morning) and decided to seek out this museum.

Peggy Guggenheim, an American art collector, was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, founder of The Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Her home in Venice and extensive art collection became a museum after her death in 1979.

I believe Becca could have stood in front of this digital waterfall in the entryway all day if we had let her. She was completely transfixed. We had to drag her away from it when we first arrived and again when it was time for us to leave.

Inside the main building, we saw works by Chagall, Picasso, Dalí, Magritte, and Pollock, but it was the sculpture garden that the kids liked best. Becca and Em posing on a throne sculpture. We assumed that was OK as everyone was taking turns sitting on it.

This long, thin scupture looked to me like a big boot. Only after passing it several times did Dave suddenly exclaim, "Oh, I get it! It's a woman!"

The Wish Tree, an olive tree given to Peggy from Yoko Ono. People write a wish on a little piece of paper and either hang the wishes on the tree, or stuff them among the branches. One scrap of paper lying on the ground, unfolded, displayed a very naughty wish indeed. Finding that particular note was one of the highlights of Micaela and James' visit.

A sculpture that reminded everyone of when Han Solo is frozen at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.

The other highlight of Micaela and James' visit to the museum. This is the 1948 bronze "The Angel of the City" by Marino Marini. Rumor has it that the horse rider originally had a screw-in demountable phallus so that it could be removed in order to avoid offending passing VIPs. So many of the bronze private bits were stolen, that the current member has been welded to the Angel's body. As you can imagine, the gift shop was loaded with all sorts of "The Angel of the City" souvenirs.

Our favorite piece at the museum, an untitled work by Anish Kapoor. At first, you gaze into the double concave circles of polished marble and see your reflection upside down.

But if you position yourself properly in front of it, a 3-D upright image pops out. 

Self-portrait

I was really hoping there would be a small reproduction of this in the gift shop, but alas, there was not. Maybe it's a good thing. I felt like Harry Potter in front of the Mirror of Erised. I didn't want to leave, it was so fascinating.

Another lion sculpture

At the end of our visit, a very tired Emilie looked like another work of art.