Preston Thayer is the director of the Radford University Art Museum. Marjorie Och is associate professor of Art History at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.

Both of us have a longtime attachment to things Italian. Marjorie is conducting a seminar on Venice this semester for which her students are creating a virtual exhibition online about the city; Preston is planning two exhibitions of contemporary Italian art at RU that will open in fall 2007.

From June 6-15, we are going to send dispatches back to our Roanoke Times readers from the Venice Biennale – the world’s oldest and largest international exposition of contemporary art. Armed with press passes, digital cameras and comfortable shoes, we will report on the art, the excitement and the inevitable chaos of this biannual spectacle.

A

A chaotic Venice speaks English

Preston Thayer and Marjorie
Och at the 2005 Biennale

Click on Pinpoint A: Preston Thayer and Marjorie
Och in a chaotic city that speaks English

Venice, as everyone knows, is a city of water. Instead of buses or cars, people get around in boats, navigating canals both grand and small.

Situated at the northern edge of the Adriatic Sea, Venice made its seafaring fortune as the middleman between East and West, trading Asian silks and Middle Eastern spices for European wood and iron. Whatever was bought and sold, Venice got her cut.

Don Vasco da Gama put a serious crimp in this monopoly in 1497 when he sailed from Europe around Africa to India -- and skipped the Venetian toll booth.

Venice is no longer the ruler of the Eastern Mediterranean, but retains its role as a place where East and West meet. Today, it’s tourism and contemporary art, not the Crusades, but the water remains.

Intro | The city | Opening day | Theme park | Strong statements | Art tourists