Last night in Venice. It rained yesterday morning. At first we slipped in and out of doors without umbrella because the drops were light and intermittent. So close to the sea, the moisture seems natural and almost  not like rain -- until it starts to pour. We had breakfast under the awning on the terrace of the Europa. The hotel breakfasts are, as they are everywhere else in Europe, buffet style with abundant choices. At home I usually have fruit and oatmeal. Traveling, I greedily help myself to everything from the eggs and bacon to the meats and cheeses, the fresh fruit, the variety of juices, croissants and jams, smoked fish and finally some cappuccino.

En route to Palazzo Gradenigo

The morning traffic on the Grand Canal between the delivery boats, the shiny black gondolas, the taxis, the private boats and the water buses, is very active, like a day coming alive. I’m still getting used to the nature of travel here -- either on foot or by boat. Although I’ve already got used to no cars anywhere. None; not a car or motorbike to be seen in Venice. A Venetian woman I met yesterday told me that she believed people slept better here because of that. I believe her. The Venetian Heritage Biennale 2007 is taking place now. Yesterday morning there was a lecture and tour by Khalil Rizk Scholar Daniel Savoy. Khalil was one of the founders of Venetian Heritage which is seriously engaged in funding restorations in Venice. He passed away at the young age of forty a few years ago but his influence remains. Afterwards the group toured the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, the Zitelle and the church of the Redentore. After the lecture-tour, there was a luncheon given by Toto Bergamo Rossi at his Palazzo Gradenigo. Toto is a stone restorer and a very popular fellow with the international set who support monument restoration. He is also a very friendly fellow. When he acquired his palazzo several years ago it was in such a state of disrepair that, as one of the guests who saw it then explained, an American would have torn it down. However, that was then. Now, because of the intrepid Toto, yesterday there were one hundred attending the luncheon in the dining room which, like most of the house, has been totally restored. Palazzo Gradenigo The luncheon was supposed to take place in his garden which more than a century ago  served as inspiration for both Henry James and Gabriele d’Annunzio who also had a house on the Grand Canal. The Venetian Heritage group draws people from America -- mainly New York -- and all over Europe including some titled ones such as Prince and Princess Michael of Greece (sculptress Marina Karella) and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent (the princes being cousins somehow in there), as well as Vicomtesse Jacqueline de Ribes. As glittering as all that might sound (if it does), the luncheon tables were very comfortable and casual with new and old friends. One of my lunch partners was a woman whose palazzo has been in her husband’s family since the beginning of the 19th century and with furniture that was made for the family back then. I asked her how it affected her children to grow up in a house which generations of forebears had preceded. She said it definitely had an effect on the way they perceived life and that one of her children, her son, felt an almost sacred proprietariness toward the house, a kind of pride of property that is unheard of to the American sensibility. The lunch menu was everything an American who loves Italian cuisine might expect: starting with a cold (shell) pasta salad with cherry tomatoes and olives, followed by a carpaccio stuffed with goat cheese over greens, followed by vanilla ice cream and chocolate covered strawberries. One of my lunch partners was raving about the Italian version of the chocolate covering of the strawberries -- harder than the American version. All served with white and red wines. All very simple and completely satisfying. After the luncheon the rain had stopped and many of the guests moved to the garden where the mystery writer Donna Leon gave a lecture on her oeuvre and the city she loves and inhabits. Some of us,however, got into a waiting taxi boat which took us back to our hotel. JH and I returned to get the day’s Diary on line.

The rain never stops the gondoliers or its passengers.

The entrance to Palazzo Gradenigo

Larry Lovett and Muffy Miller of Venetian Heritage with Prince Michael of Kent

Prince Dimitri, Danna Swarovksi, Princess Michael of Kent, and Toto Bergamo Rossi

The sitting room at Palazzo Gradenigo

The dining room set for lunch.

Monika Bacardi and Toto Bergamo Rossi

Barbara Berlingieri, DPC, and Judy Taubman

The palazzo garden which served as inspiration for Henry James and Gabrielle D'Annunzio among others.

L. to r.: The view outside the palazzo; The guest book.

Taking the boat back to the hotel with Princess Michael of Greece and Jean Pierre Mitterand.

Last night the Venetian Heritage guests were invited by Francois Pinault, the French retailing tycoon (Gucci/Converse sneakers/Vail ski resort, etc.) for a private guided visit of Palazzo Grassi to see a special exhibition for the Biennale from M. Pinault’s private collection. From there the group went for a concert by a quintet led by the young American pianist Stephen Beus, followed by a dinner at Scuola di San Rocco, one of the great buildings of Venice with paintings and decoration by Tintoretto. We missed last night’s dinner, instead making the rounds (or the Venetian version of that) as guests of Janna Bullock, the Russian art collector and real estate entrepreneur who recently joined the board of the Peggy Guggenheim. The Biennale is dominating Venice this week, the city filled to its Byzantine rafters with collectors, artists, dealers and curators, not to mention journalists and art mavens. There are parties everywhere. Although it is different in terms of social composition, the fervor  and intensity of it all reminds me of Fashion Week in New York -- with something art business-oriented going on everywhere all the time including many cocktail receptions centered around exhibitions, special showings, and dinners. We started with the boat picking us up at the dock of the Europa at about 8:30 and taking us across the Canal to the Peggy Guggenheim where there was a traffic jam of boats lined up, coming and going, depositing, picking up visitors. The party was wall-to-wall people, clattering, yakking, drinking white wine or Proseco. After moving around the crowd most of whom I didn’t know, I stationed myself by the entrance to watch the politics of arrivals and departures -- the unassuming, the preening, the attention-seekers, the self-decorated egos, the blase.

On the dock of the Gritti waiting to be taken across to the Guggenheim.

10 minutes later after a minor traffic jam, we pull up to the Guggenheim.

The frenetic scene at the Guggenheim.

Kyle DeWoody, Jonah Faye-Hurvitz, and Felicia Taylor

A young Gugg fan

Where the Treo meets the Blackberry

Thomas Krens and his new board member Janna Bullock

Dr. Bruno and Jessica Sälzer with Philipp Wolff

Charlie Scheips and friends

At a certain point Thomas Krens, the director of the Guggenheim in New York, arrived, solo. Soon the photographers were snapping him with his new board member Janna Bullock.

The view of the Grand Canal from the roof of the Guggenheim

Photographing completed, the entire Bullock party which included her public relations consultant Couri Hay, photographer Patrick McMullan, Liliana Cavendish, nine or ten in all, boarded her hired boat (which she kept around the clock) and began an odyssey of party-going which included a visit to an island for a “Prada” party which was over by the time we arrived, then on to another party in a restaurant located in a restored warehouse in a boatyard where there were quite a few Americans dining including collector Peter Brant and his wife Stephanie Seymour, Adam Lindemann and his fiancee Amalia Dayan.

Arriving and departing the former Prada party

Dinner at Ristorante Mistra for party #2

From there we moved on to the very grand Pisani-Moretta Palazzo on the Grand Canal where there was an impressive buffet (prepared, we were told, by the greatest caterer in Italy).

Dinner at Pisani-Moretta Palazzo.

Party hostess Andrea Rosen

A reflection of a ceiling fresco

One of the dining rooms

Liliana Cavendish with Princess Borghese and friend

The ballroom of the palazzo with musicians and the bar.

Another dining area at the palazzo.

After dinner, it was back in the boat to go across to another island and the Cipriani Hotel where Stella Kesaev was hosting a “Russian” party to celebrate her Moscow-based contemporary art foundation in a large Cipriani venue which looked like a former warehouse that had been beautifully decorated by London-based international socialite and party planner Rena Sindi with mirrors and lights and leather sofas both inside and out. We had arrived, it turned out, just in time for the performance of Italian crooner Paolo Conte. Conte, who is known as the Frank Sinatra of Italy, accompanies himself on the piano and is backed up by an orchestra, is fabulous. I’d never heard him before. His band sound is a kind of rock-swing and he sings with a smooth deep baritone. I’d never heard of him before but I was in the minority in this crowd. He is very famous in Europe and elsewhere around the world, as indeed he should be. A guy probably in his 50s, he has the cool air of an Italian swain, bemused, almost self-parodying, and lively. He made it one of the best parties of the week.

Andre Balazs and Tony Shafrazi

Todd Sowers and Pierre Durand

Doug Cramer and friend

Naomi Campbell telling secrets

Rena Sindi and David Anton

Paolo Conte

'When we going home ma?'

Outside Hotel Cipriani.

Leaving Hotel Cipriani for the Europa Hotel.

After Paolo Conte’s performance, my partying hostess and friends were still going strong but the clock had struck midnight and I was ready for a little less activity. We caught the next boat (the Cipriani runs them every ten minutes) back to the Piazza San Marco and the hotel. Arriving in the courtyard of the Europa, we ran into George Farias from New York, who was chatting with David Monn, the party designer. Farias joined us for a nightcap in the hotel bar. Twenty minutes later we were joined by several of Janna Bullock’s guests (although not Mrs Bullock)  as well as Bettina Zilkha who’d just returned to the hotel from another party. Soon Patrick McMullan and JH were bringing out their cameras to catch the scene. One more round and then we all decided to call it a night. It is a great privilege and pleasure to be here, to see this most amazing city unlike any other across the world. The Italians are wonderful hosts; they make everything seem good natured and easy. I am also struck by the awesome presence of modern material wealth alongside the treasures of architectural antiquities -- the huge private yachts moored along the docks in certain parts -- here to partake of the excitement of the contemporary art world. The international art scene as demonstrated by this week in Venice is now a living, breathing mass commentary on the state of western civilization or what is now known as “the developed countries” with its grand excess of new super-wealth and a kind of baroque consumerism (acquisition of art). Considering all of the elements of nature and international politics that are currently confronting us, Venice and its history serves as a perfect venue of no small irony for this modern enterprise known as the art business and the foibles of the human condition which continue to challenge us.

Back at the bar at the Europa Hotel: Renee Lucas, George Farias, Bettina Zilkha, Patrick McMullan, Liliana Cavendish, and an exhausted DPC.

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