Sept 22nd, Rome MAXXI Art Gallery

9/22     Sunday

            So, today we try another modern art venue, the more formal MAXXI Museum, the National Museum of Art of the Twenty First Century (XXI). It’s a little farther out, so we take a bus, getting off at a stop nearby where there’s a bike path and a pedestrian bridge across the river, lots of people out for the Sunday afternoon bike ride or stroll. We see a lot of guys wearing pale blue team jerseys, drinking beer with a sense of purpose, and surmise that we are not far from a stadium, and it’s game day. The strategically placed police trucks and soldiers in the area confirm this for us.

            We have a short walk over the bridge to the MAXII center, a very modern building, set on a plaza with a café, where everyone brings their kids to play around the sculptures. The building was placed in a fairly run-down factory block, and has done wonders to rejuvenate the neighborhood. A very large complex of auditoriums for music performances, symphony and opera, is also not far from here. The MAXXI building is very dramatic, a swooping, abstract construction of metal and glass.

            The exhibits are interesting and unusual. Hard to describe in brief. Here’s how the museum describes one major exhibition of Francesco Vezzoli:

Embroidery, petit point, video, photographs, sculptures, works by the artist from Brescia are plots of references, citations using fragments of auteur cinema, the Hollywood production and from that on television, art history, fashion and policy, drawing both from the "high" culture as by the popular one. Drawing on themes pertaining to the collective, Vezzoli takes possession of the mechanisms of communication media and, through a complex weaving project of linguistic codes, unmasks the systems, logical mechanisms.

Anyhow, it was quite fun. After a relaxing snack at the outdoor café, surrounded by well-heeled Italians having their Sunday afternoon get-togethers, we walked back across the bridge to our bus stop.

            The streets are quiet and empty. Really empty. We figure that all the streets surrounding the stadium have been shut down for crowd control and police access. We don’t expect to see a bus here anytime soon, so we walk up a few blocks to another stop where the traffic is moving. A few others are waiting, including a friendly lady who chats with Bob in Italian, through his Smartphone translator. I doubt that much actual information is changing hands, but they’re having fun with it.

            We start to see scooters and walkers coming from the stadium, signs that the game is over. It seems the Rome team has lost. The numbers of people increases, and a few cars start to appear. No bus. Then, we hear some banging and shouting. Down the street, near our first bus stop, we can see clouds of smoke, something on fire. The riot squads across the street from us start assembling their equipment, lining up, walking down the middle of the street in a line, followed by their big armored truck.  Everything is happening calmly, without any urgency or panic. People continue strolling back to their cars, some snacking on sandwiches as they walk. Hardly anybody even turns to see what’s going on. This must happen ALL THE TIME.

            Now we’ve totally given up on the bus, and start walking. After about a half a mile, we get to a highway, no sidewalk, no way across the bridge. We have to back-track. Although the riot is blocking us from the bridge further down, there’s still one other that we might be able to walk over. As we approach, we get to a bus stop as the bus arrives. So we hop on, happily riding across the river, then unhappily watching our bus turn off the street away from our route. We get a ride, whether we like it or not, for several more blocks, until we get a stop, just about right where we started from when we left the museum, about two hours ago.

            We have a small trudge a few miles in another direction to get to a Metro that we could have been smart enough to take in the first place, and manage to get back to our apartment, a mere three hour journey for the evening.

 1 Video Included

Rome MAXXI Art Gallery

Sept 21st, Rome Tiber Hill of Pots

9/21     Saturday

            We plan an excursion to an interesting modern art complex, in a neighborhood that’s off the beaten tourist track. It’s called MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, a reuse of a gigantic 19^th Century slaughterhouse, or abattoir, which sounds so much nicer.

            On our way, we happen upon a weird landmark, a sudden hill made entirely of broken amphorae, dating from as far back as 2AD. Rome was one of the largest populations in the world at the time, and had a great demand for olive oil, which was shipped in these non-reusable clay jugs. To address the problem of piles of discarded amphorae, they organized a place where the jugs were collected, broken down and layered efficiently into what grew into a great big hill. Now it’s the cornerstone of a funky, arty neighborhood called Testaccio, wherein resides the aforementioned slaughter…abattoir.

            We arrive at the complex, and it’s closed! Its hours are from 4pm to 10pm, which tells you something about the type of neighborhood we’re in. Actually, the entire perimeter of Mount Testaccio is full of nightclubs and bars and restaurants dug into the clay shard hillsides. It’s just not an afternoon kind of place. This is too bad, because all the reviews of MACRO sound like exactly the sort of place we really enjoy. Look it up, it’s very interesting stuff.

1 Video Included

 Rome Tiber Hill of Pots

Sept 20th, St. Peter's Bascilica

9/20     Friday

After successfully negotiating our way through the Vatican Museums, we’re ready to take on St. Peter’s Basillica. Entry is free, but there is a security check to go through. The enormous front plaza is familiar to us from broadcasts of the recent pope’s selection. A large section is set up with chairs, perhaps for a mass on Sunday, and the rest of the space is full of people milling around or standing in the sun waiting in line. It takes some figuring to find the line. We sort out a group of people who are obviously in line, then work our way back along a snaking string of people until we get to a spot where nobody acts offended when we join in.

The crowds disperse once we get through the scanners. When we walk into the basilica, we can see why. It’s not just the biggest church we’ve ever been in, it’s about the biggest building, period. You can hardly see the end of the hall from the doorways. We decide to go back to the entrance for an audio guide. The lady at the desk says, yes, they have a guide, but it was recorded by one of the cardinals, and it is all religious. She suggests we sign up for a guided tour. We can go in a half hour if four more people sign up. So we agree, and just walk around the front portico for a while, looking at the statues and gigantic carved doors. Then it turns out that of all the thousands of people visiting that day, there are not a mere four willing to take the tour with us. So, we get the audio tours after all. She again reminds us that they are mostly religious, whatever that means. We are at the Vatican, after all.

The guide is fine, with plenty of commentary on the sculptures, history and artists. The church is fantastically beautiful, as one would expect of the centerpiece of the Catholic religion. We visit the central altar, presumably built on the site of St. Peter’s martyrdom, with his relics kept in a crypt below it. Pretty amazing.

There is a bronze statue off to the side, which everyone considers to be of St. Peter. The provenance is obscure, though, and it may actually represent some earlier god. But for now, it’s St. Peter, and everyone who visits lines up to touch his bronze foot, either in prayer or for good luck. Some people stand and have their photo taken while they touch the foot. We don’t exactly know what’s going on, but we go along and stand in line too. The foot, both feet actually, have been through so many hundreds of years of this petting homage that the metal has been worn down, leaving “St. Peter” with these weird, flattened seal flipper feet.

After the main basilica, we need to see the cupola. There is a fee for this, and of course, a line. There are numerous signs warning that there are 500 some steps to the cupola. The elevator will take you past 270 of them, but you’ll still have to climb steps to get to the top. We bypass the elevator. The stairway becomes narrower and narrower as you ascend. As you reach the part that passes the great dome, the walls get all rounded too. It’s like some kind of team-building experience with people you don’t work with. Finally, at the cupola walkway, there’s a wonderful view of the city. There are also all those people who were waiting in line ahead of us. Oh, and they forgot the signs telling you there are 500 some steps back down.

1 Video Included

 St. Peter's Bascilica

Sept 19th, Vatican Museum

9/19     Thursday

We say a little prayer as we approach the Vatican Museums, passing the line of several hundred not moving people waiting to buy their tickets. “Thank GOD Laurie warned us to buy our tickets online.” We walk up to the Online Ticketholders entry and go in, no waiting at all.

Once we’re in, we can take our time and avoid the rushing tide of tours threatening to sweep us away. The collections practically cover the entire time of human existence as expressed in art, and every inch of the palatial rooms, stairways, halls and apartments is noteworthy, masterfully painted or embellished to create a residence worthy of the popes. It is sensory overload to the max. It would be impossible to see everything in a day, and most of the tours are anxious for the high points: the Raphael rooms and the Sistine Chapel, which could certainly keep you occupied for hours. Everyone loves the Animal Room, a fascinating collection of sculptures ranging from a life-size lion attacking a stag to a sweet little bunny rabbit. We manage to explore several other wings, seeing the Egyptian mummies, the reconstructed Roman chariots. We walk slowly through the corridors, looking at the ceilings, the cabinet panels, the floor tiles. Some of the corridors are covered with massive, elaborate tapestries. Every inch of space in the building is worth looking at.

Most of the tours don’t take a break for lunch, so we found a peaceful spot to share a sandwich in the express café, tucked away behind a stairwell. It was like sitting behind a tree with a great beehive in it, knowing that swarms of people were in the halls just a few feet away.

The apartments of the Cardinals painted by Raphael were wonderful to see. We could imagine Raphael working away, taking a little break to go over to the chapel to see how Michelangelo was doing, trying out some of his techniques on a figure or two.

The Sistine Chapel does not disappoint; it is spectacular. The recent restorations may have been controversial at the time, but the results are incredible. The colors are bright and luminous; the whole chapel is vibrant with the work. The audio guide for the room is descriptive and interesting. The very large room is full of people, walking with their heads tilted, stepping on each other, but in a polite, well mannered way. The room hums with murmuring commentary. The sound builds until, at measured intervals it seems, one of the attending guards will shout “SILENCIO!!! This is a HOLY PLACE!” (“You creepy tourists, you.”) The chapel becomes silent for about five seconds, then the inevitable cycle of talking starts again.

A person could happily spend hours in the chapel, especially if provided with a reclining lounge chair, but we manage to move on. We can see the lovely gardens of the courtyard through the windows in one corridor. The centerpiece of the garden is a large, shining bronze orb, which I recognize as the work of Pomodoro. Here, in the center of the Vatican Museum gardens, is the orb counterpart to our cone. Together they would recreate the emblem for the 1939 World’s Fair!

We break off from the main stream to hunt down the collection of contemporary art, down a stairway to a lower chamber of whitewashed rooms, looking stark after all the rooms before. The collection is very interesting and makes us wish we knew more about the acquisitions. Some works were probably gifts, others seem more like commissions. “Say, the Pope likes your stuff, could you do maybe a crucifixion scene or something for him?” The selections seem like minor works from major artists, an interesting assortment of names. Lionel Feininger, Ben Shan, Charles Burchfield, Paul Klee. There is a small, perfect Van Gogh Pieta, and a sort of throw-away bas relief panel by Gauguin.

We are getting somewhat exhausted as we stagger through yet another corridor of exquisitely decorated cabinets, making our way to the end of the exhibits. We are almost clear, when we come up to the Ethnographic Museum, an entire new wing full of cultural artifacts from around the world. Again we pray, Thank God, most of it is closed for a new exhibition. We just visit the first room, which has some wonderful and enlightening exhibits. There is a ten foot high feather headdress from New Guinea, and some strikingly beautiful everyday pieces from Australia, painted with a pattern of dots and colors.

The director of the museum provides a statement that, to paraphrase, suggests that the primitive cultures which live, of necessity, in close harmony with nature, respecting their environment, even honoring nature through the worship of their own gods, are living with God in the purest sense. It seems incredibly open-minded and radical to read such an embracing philosophy towards what is basically paganism in the Vatican, but it makes perfect sense, too.

 1 Video Included

Vatican Museum

Sept 18th, Rome National Gallery of Modern Art

9/18     Wednesday

We’ve nearly overdosed on ancient ruins, so today we’ll see a newer site, the  National Gallery of Modern Art. The metro stop is near the Borgia Villa, so there are many tour buses around, but few are going to the art museum. It’s a fine exhibition building, set apart form the Borgia grounds with a grand stairway at the entrance. The interior court is an installation by a visiting artist, who has covered the floor with panels of shattered mirror, reflecting and distorting the ceiling and columns, like you’re looking though a pool of rippling waters. It’s quite a stunning effect.

The museum rooms are organized thematically, focusing on Italian artists who embody the themes presented. It’s an interesting way to place the works, although the descriptions aren’t as clear as you’d like in the translations. Obviously, Italian is an expressive and poetic language, and usually a literal translation comes across as a bit weird.

There are several works, drawings, paintings and sculptures by Arnoldo Pomodoro, the artist who created the modern sculpture that sits on the grounds of government office buildings in upstate NY. We don’t seem to hold him in quite the same esteem as the Italians do.

In the room showing the influences of Orientalism on 19^th Century artists, there’s an incredible full-sized statue of Cleopatra, lounging on a lionskin, contemplating a viper curled in a basket on her hip. The details of textures and features is fantastic: the lion’s claws, her braided hair, the metallic embroidery of her dress, the leather straps of her sandals, even her toenails, all exquisitely rendered in marble.

A second statue, in another area, almost set aside in a corner, holds my attention as well. I can tell from across the room that it’s the work of Ivan Meštrovic. The subject is completely radical, practically taboo: a nude, old woman. She stands simply, gnarled, heavy hands at her side. Her shoulders and chest are bony and sagging, her belly, soft and bulging. her sunken eyes are closed, her face composed, quite, resigned. The statue is startling realistic, but at the same time mythic; simple, but heroic. Meštrovic’s ability to make marble seem soft and as luminous as this old woman’s delicate skin is just incredible.

 1 Video Included

Rome National Gallery of Modern Art

Sept 17th, Rome Forum and Colosseum

9/17     Tuesday

A day with Steve and Laurie in Rome! We take a bus into the city, enjoying a scenic tour through the streets. Their hotel is near the Spanish Steps, so it’s easy to find. Steve has spent several years living in Rome during medical school, so he’s on his home turf. After hugging and chatting a little, we’re off on a tour of the sites.

What a treat! All the sights, no thinking required. Steve trots through the streets, leading us along with his knowledgeable commentary. We walk across some charming piazzas and soon arrive at the Pantheon. After 2000 years, this is still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome and one of the most influential buildings in architectural design. The space is still reverberating with the reverence of its original intention as a temple. We learn that Raphael’s tomb is here, and several other notable artists and poets. Of course, all the tourists enjoy the open oculus at the top of the dome.

We make our way through the sea of tourists in the streets, past the grand monument to self-indulgence of the first King of Italy, Victor Emmanual II. It looks rather like the Parliament in Vienna.

After a light lunch in a little bistro, we make our way to the Roman Forum. The grounds of the excavation site are enormous. It takes a little maneuvering to figure out how to enter. We get our tickets, including the Coliseum, and our audio guides, and wander through the ancient columns and monuments. Bob would like to see the whole site reconstructed to show it as it would have been in all its glory.

Entering the Coliseum is much like going to a Giants game, following the crowd along the exterior corridors to the staircases that bring you to the stands. The stadium would have held as many as 55,000 spectators back in 80 AD. The ruined state of today exposes the lower levels and passages, giving us some idea of the complex maneuverings that would have gone on when events were held. We all take our time walking along the upper level, looking over the site, milling around, imagining the gladiators, prisoners and wild beasts. I think the Giants would have been the prisoners in that match-up.

We have had our fill of Roman ruins now, so we make our way back towards the hotel, through some side streets and smaller avenues, all filled with the charm of Rome. Steve cleverly brings us around to the famous Trevi Fountain, with the entire piazza swarming with tourists, of course. Bob wants to throw in a coin. I don’t see how that can happen, but we actually do manage to work through the crowd to sit on the fountain rim. It’s a lovely sight as the light is changing to a dusky evening, everything has a bluish glow from the water and the marble. We don’t even notice the tourists around us.

Steve and Laurie’s hotel has a wonderful rooftop terrace that, strangely, no one else uses. We relax with a cocktail and look over the tile roofs and bell towers and domes, picking out St. Peter’s and its cupola. We walk just down the street to a little bar for a round of Negronis, then to a very authentic Roma restaurante. The waiter clearly enjoys Steve’s competent Italian, taking some refuge in waiting on us. We can hear a raucous chorus of “That’s Amore” coming from the room adjoining ours, and can only imagine what's going on there.

We have an easy time getting to our metro stop, having had such a fun day, topped off with the treat of an evening out. Steve is crazy for Italy, and his passion is infectious and delightful.

1 Video Included

 Rome Forum and Colosseum