Palazzo Fortuny

On Sunday one of my fellow interns and I decided to meet at Palazzo Fortuny. It's an old palace, as the name suggests, that was owned by the wealthy Pesaro family, but was taken over by Mariano Fortuny, a Spanish fashion designer and art collector. Several of the other interns suggested we go because there is an exhibition on Diana Vreeland a fashion editor, and an instalation by James Turrell. What followed upon entering was the most confusing and strange exhibiton space I've ever been in.

The main part of the museum is on the second floor, and all signs for the exhibition point in that direction. What they don't tell you is that all of the art and shows are displayed together. When you walk in there are large glass cases with elegant gowns in them which you suppose were owned by Diana Vreeland, but next to them is the reporduction of a suit of armour, and I don't think she wore that. There are tapestry covering on the old stone walls on top of which hang dozens of paintings some of them studies of more famous works of art, some of them painted my Fortuny's father, and then Andy Warhol, and photographs of Venice in the 19th Century. There is a giant stair case/ladder that leads to no where and random book shelves, and scale models of amphitheaters and other palazzi.

I didn't know where to look first. What makes it all the more confusing is that there are no labels. You have to get a booklet at the entrance that out lies the entire space and the adjoining rooms with just what you are looking at. The most disturbing part was the James Turrell gallery where you had to walk through a room that was pitch black in order to get to the space within, where a rectangle of color was floating on a wall. It changed colors but very subtly, so that you didn't know it was different until you were looking at a patch of blue when you could have sworn it was pink when you stumbled in.

On the first floor was an exhibition called "Avere una bella cera" (To have a good wax, although they translated it to "Waxing Eloquent") Neither title is appropriate for it though, because it was a creepy display of wax figures made from the corpses of prisoners and monks. There were royal wax figures as well, complete with moles and real hair. It was slightly horrifying and more than a little perverse, to say the least.

Overall, Palazzo Fortuny was unsettling at first, but thinking back to the visit I enjoyed it. Confusion heightens your curiosity, I think. Except for those wax figures. I could have gone my whole life without having to have seen those.