Aside from the idea of spending a day in the famous biennale, and beside from the longing for meeting your favorite actor or director in la Mostra de cinema, there are plenty of great and interesting exhibitions, located in magnificent places.

So, this is what i did last time in Venice. Instead of going to la grande Biennale and spent your day in the fair, i’ve choosed 3 different exhibitions in beautiful places.

First, The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is another trip to the past. Entering to Peggy’s venecian home, at the  Palazzo Vernier dei Leoni, bought by her in 1948, is going back to the 50¨s. I really enjoyed her great collection, while fusing the art pieces with open and straight views on the Grand Canal. You can walk through her house with furniture, dinner table and  decoration objects, while meeting paintures, sculptures and small sculptures. And enjoy her venecian terrace on the banks of the Grand Canal. Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Dalí, Roberto Matta, Calder, Picasso, Picabia. Delightful.

And I had double luck this time, because of the temporal exhibition, a jewrly of a crown:

Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity.

Then, after having lunch in the Museum Cafe at the interior garden I lined up to Punta della Godana. This is a great place to have a spectacular view of the city and its surround.  The Pinault Collection at the Dogana da Mar, was the second exhibition I visited. The building was an old warehouse and customs office built in 1670.

This is a favorite place. You arrive from a great open  space, like a big open terrace, of the Basilica Santa Maria della Salute. And then the huge building of Dogana dell Mar welcomes inside a top exhibition. Bruce Neumann Contrapposto Studies. The moment was to be in a glimpse of the 21st century. A glimpse these modern times; being in a very old SXV building very well preserved, renovated, and with cutting-edge technology; exposing modern ideas of conceptual art. Blowing your thoughts and prejudices. Even if some of the videos and performances of Bruce Neuman were done on the 60´s and 70´s, the mix with his late works give a view of what modernity is.

Finally, after walking through the streets, the Campos and crossing a lot of bridges, I arrived to Palazzo Grassi, another building choosed by Henry Pinault to exhibited his  collection. The Pinault Collection offers one exhibition a year in a Palazzo built in 1748 – 1772. It´s the last monumental building commissioned before the extinction of the Republic of Venice. And inside there are four huge levels for one exhibition. I enjoyed Marlene Dumas paintings. Oils that seem watercolors. Figures and concepts. Both ideas exposed at the same time.