Sartorialist

Look at this amazing outfit I saw at the opening reception for a Bill Viola installation in the small church of San Gallo. Most folks wandering the Biennale are sensibly dressed - flat shoes and airy clothes. But I've seen a few die hard fashionistas in their spiky Manolos tramping around the giardini gravel and mud (it rained pretty hard yesterday). I doubt this woman even saw much art that day but damn she looks fabulous.

I don't know who hosted the reception, but they served nice sparkling wine in the campo outside the church just as dusk was falling. We've been improvising this whole Biennale experience and learned about the party only because Jonathan Neil mentioned it when I ran into him earlier in the day. We've attended lots of cool things in that way. The only time anyone tried to keep Veronica and me out of anything was at the door of an event that I was actually invited to attend! I won't name the host, but let's just say it was a well-respected Washington, DC, institution. Granted, we hadn't changed our clothes for the evening so we might have been a little sweaty and dusty from having shlepped around the giardini all day. But dammit, we're art lovers and we want our free prosecco and hors d'oeuvres!

Almost didn't even get into the Biennale yesterday because the ticket I'd bought didn't allow me to enter until today. Fortunately, Veronica had run into a friend that morning who gave her an extra ticket, which allowed entry for two. Phew! Social success during the Biennale preview and opening requires a bit of resourcefulness if you're not an accredited journalist, huge collector, museum director, or the like.

The Bill Viola video installation consisted of three large screens placed high on three sides of a small, dark church. One at a time, an every-person (a different one each time) would emerge through a sheet of water, look around, and then back away from the viewer through the water fall. It was timed so that the viewer could watch one screen at a time. The video was accompanied by the sound of water and electronic white noise, which, at first, seemed like only background but became almost overpowering.

By the way, we especially liked the detail on the back of the stockings, which she told us were Jean Paul Gaultier.