Falling in love again

It doesn’t matter that the city charges an entry fee or that it’s impossible to jump the boats or that we have to queue to enter the gardens. We are staying in the east, where the streets are empty and the buildings crumbling and beautiful. We have eaten and got drunk in peace. I have fallen for a painting of St George and the Dragon and you have been reminded of what it was about the work of de Kooning that made you fall in love with yourself. And we have spoken of things left unsaid and of the children and of how we might fill the time we have left.

The Venice Biennale, the oldest of its kind, opened this year at the end of April, and is comprised of gardens-based pavilions given over to artists representing different countries and of the halls of the Arsenale. ‘Willem de Kooning and Italy’ is showing in Galleria dell’Accademia.      

Images: Teaser Willem de Kooning Villa Borghese (1960) © Pedro Emanuel Pereira  and masthead Vittore Carpaccio St George and the Dragon (1508) © Pascal Deloch