When the Doges: a tribute to Venice in pictures

The exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York tells the story of the lagoon city and its islands through the photographs of Gianni Berengo Gardin, Renato D’Agostin, Fulvio Roiter and Claudia Corrent.

“It always seems a bit absurd, I’m pleasantly surprised to see from Bolzano that these images of Venice have landed in New York... it’s crazy! To have an exhibition shared with those who have created an imaginary of the city like Gardin and Roiter is really exciting, considering that they are masters. In short, I got lost when I was a little girl, I immersed myself in their images, and D’Agostin also gave me a lot of inspiration”. 

This is how Claudia Corrent, a photographer from Trentino, commented her work during the vernissage of “When the Doges”, the collective exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute, on show until 15 February 2020. Among the photographs of the four authors exhibited, Corrent’s were highly anticipated by her dense activity on Instagram, and showcased separately from the others, in a different room in a middle space between the first and second floor of the building.

It feels like entering a world apart, and precisely in a small island that is not accessible, a sort of place of the mind, just turning a certain corner of Park Avenue. 

Sestiere di S. Marco
Sestiere di S. Marco. Photo Claudia Corrent

The exhibition took place under the patronage of the Consulate General of Italy, the Italian Cultural Institute and Save Venice – the non-profit organization voted since 1966, the year of the most serious rise in water in the lagoon city – which last November had organized a fundraiser for the restoration of buildings damaged by high water.

“Venice is the silence of the calli at night, the light that feels like east at sunset. It is its islands that flow slowly. It is a familiar place, the fog, the light in summer, the colour of the stones, its being suspended in a metaphysical, indefinable dimension. Venice is a state of mind... that I have tried to photograph”, says Corrent, and this month on the Upper West Side there is a small room where you can move among the pastel colours and shaded atmospheres of the lagoon territory of the islands of Burano, Lido, Sant’Erasmo, San Francesco del Deserto, Pellestrina, Torcello. Actually we are in New York, on the 69th Street, close to the Metropolitan and Central Park, but on the other hand, as Calvino used to say, “In a city you don’t enjoy the seven or seventy-seven wonders, but the answer to one of your questions”.

Exhibition:
When the Doges (Used to Wed the Sea with Rings)
Photographers:
Gianni Berengo Gardin, Renato D’Agostin, Fulvio Roiter, Claudia Corrent
Organized by:
ICI
In collaboration with:
SAVE VENICE
Venue:
Istituto Italiano di Cultura, New York, 686 Park Avenue
Opening dates:
15 January-15 February 2020

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