On the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo in Venice’s old Jewish section, a synagogue is hidden inside each of the two arch-windowed apartment buildings. The left building conceals a synagogue for German Jews and the one at center is for Italian Jews.Credit Anthony Cotsifas
The Venetian Ghetto’s Hidden Gems
You would never know that behind the entirely nondescript facade of the city’s old Jewish quarter are five exquisite synagogues, each with its own particular style.
In the context of Jewish history, the word ‘‘ghetto’’ carries with it an unmistakable fatalism. But long before the Holocaust, the term had a different set of connotations. The Jewish quarters of the great European capitals — Paris’s Marais, Frankfurt’s Judengasse, Amsterdam’s Jodenbuurt — were testaments to the diversity and richness of Jewish life. Often sites of mandated segregation ridden with poverty and plague, they also fostered cultural exchange and intellectual vitality. Nowhere was this more apparent than in Venice, which established one of Europe’s first Jewish ghettos in 1516 in the Cannaregio district, on a small island where the city's cannons had previously been cast: the foundry, or ‘‘geto.’’
Today a quiet, crumbling corner of a sinking city, the Venetian ghetto was once a microcosm of Venice itself, a tapestry woven of many nations, pasts, traditions and languages. Venice was a capital of the Mediterranean world, but it was also a capital of Jewish life in Europe, the epitome of the Diaspora’s potential. The most enduring evidence of the cosmopolitan universe that used to exist here are the five synagogues that today lie hidden behind the nondescript facades of dilapidated apartment buildings where a few families actually still live: small jewel boxes that quietly preserve an enchanting global artistry.
On a Friday afternoon this fall, I walked along the bar-lined main canal that cuts through the now trendy Cannaregio, past tourists eating outside and locals crowded around coffee counters, before turning into a dark alley, the Calle Ghetto Vecchio, next to a small kosher restaurant. On a sleepy square at the passage’s end, the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, boys were kicking a soccer ball while elderly women perused a storefront display of winter accouterments for pets. The Museo Ebraico, a small, modest museum from the 1950s, organized in a series of strange little rooms, tells the story of the area. It is to be refurbished next year by the Venetian Heritage Council to mark the ghetto’s 500th anniversary, along with the three 16th-century synagogues hidden on the upper floors of the crumbling buildings on the same piazza.
Each synagogue was designed to correspond to a different nation of Jewish immigrants, and part of the pleasure of visiting them is noticing their unique styles. The oldest, the Scuola Grande Tedesca, built in the 1520s for German Jews who imported Ashkenazi traditions to the Mediterranean world, is most ornate, although you’d never know it from the outside. The synagogues were initially tolerated on the condition that their exteriors bear no resemblance to Jewish houses of worship, so the sense of being enveloped in opulence is all the more striking when you enter. The Scuola Canton, built a few years later, possibly for émigrés from southern France, showcases a Torah ark laced with gilded carvings and wood panels illustrating the book of Exodus. The beauty of the Renaissance Scuola Italiana is restrained, by contrast, with natural light streaming in from five large windows, illuminating the ancient mahogany.
Across a small pedestrian bridge are the two Sephardic synagogues, the Scuola Levantina and the Scuola Spagnola. In terms of architectural conventions, these two seem to break all the rules; they were lovingly restored in the 17th century by non-Jewish artisans — perhaps even by Baldassare Longhena, the master of Venetian Baroque. That evening, I returned to the Spanish synagogue for a service packed with locals and visitors. Bathed in the gentle glow of giant Flemish candelabra, the space was resplendent, filled with chanting and with history, in all its darkness and light. A fantasy of black-and-white marble and rich red satin, it is as much a piece of Venetian cultural patrimony as it is a masterpiece of Jewish architecture. For a moment in time, there was little difference.
Joe Jackson, James Joyce, Darth Vader, Lucius Malfoy and Brutus all have one thing in common: They’re “Bad Dads,” according to the French multimedia artist Camille Henrot, whose new show of interactive sculptures and drawings opens at Metro Pictures this week. Henrot’s definition of the term extends beyond the biological to include any authority figure that abuses power — a parent, sure, but also the government, the police or even the Internet. In preparing for her upcoming show, Henrot wondered what strategies people might use to “balance this dependent relationship.” One strategy: to call a hotline.
Henrot's "Bad Dad & Beyond," an interactive work that provides visitors with advice about their computers, fathers and existential woes.Credit Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures
Inspired in equal parts by emergency phones and toys, Henrot created several bright, playful telephones for her new show, each accompanied by a script co-written by the poet Jacob Bromberg (with whom Henrot worked on her 2013 film, “Grosse Fatigue”). Visitors can pick up plastic receivers and listen to a series of questions that lead to advice for modern conundrums. For those who want to complain about an unsavory stranger or unruly friend, there is the hotline “Enough is Enough” — which also includes the option to complain about the hotline itself. Then there’s the “Bad Dawg/Best Friend Forever Hotline,” which incorporates dogs of both varieties: the canine kind (“Press 2 if he chews up your shoes”) and the bad-boyfriend kind. (“Press 6 if your dog wakes you up during thunderstorms and texts you at all hours of the night, even getting his friends to text you because he is afraid of you cheating.”) The “Bad Dad & Beyond” hotline takes technology woes to a new level: “Does he sacrifice children to Moloch and perform unexpected reboots?” a voice asks. “Has he been infected by a porn virus?” Press 0 for yes and 1 for no.
At far left, Henrot's painting “Trickle-Down Effect.”Credit Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures
Henrot’s works combine the lighthearted, twisted and political. In large watercolor drawings that recall the fluid lines of Matisse, familiar images of cute animals and mythological figures take on murky meanings. In the diptych “Bad Dad,” Henrot renders a jovial father pelican eating his scared, fluffy offspring. Another painting, “Trickle-Down Effect,” depicts a row of four wolves joyously copulating all at once. Charming but unsettling, these pastel-colored paintings return to what Henrot calls “the ambivalence of our relationship with the authorities we depend on.”
Here, Paige Powell, former Interview magazine associate publisher and ex-girlfriend of Jean-Michel Basquiat, shares photos from her personal archive. “Fresh 14 was a short-lived club with great energy and a horrible sound system, which might account for the expression on Madonna’s face,” Powell says of this photo. “Unfortunately, two kids shot each other there and it closed. When I was in New York recently, I noticed that space is now a Forever 21.”
CreditPaige Powell
“Keith was totally adoring of Andy, and he came to visit us sometimes — I have a video of him painting a life-size papier-mâché elephant in Andy’s studio in ‘The Ride’ installation. He’s lying on his back to paint the underbelly and doesn’t spill a single drop of paint. It’s pretty incredible. And we would visit him in his studio or there at the Pop Shop — it wasn’t a place where tourists went, not like it became in the ’90s. At first it was a art space, a hangout, a performance space — very cool stuff happened there.”
Paige Powell
“I was going up to the South Bronx to hang out at Stefan Eins’s art/science space, Fashion Moda. A1 and Rammellzee had art there, along with the Mitchell Crew, a group of artists from the Mitchell Project. I wanted to bring these kids downtown because they were so fresh and people were afraid to go that far uptown. But Andy was concerned about me bringing them over to his studio — he was afraid they would write on his paintings. Jean-Michel made what I regard as his master work inspired by this scene — a painting called ‘The Mitchell Crew’ that has never been shown since I sold it to the Neumanns in 1983.”
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Powell with Basquiat’s “The Mitchell Crew.”
Paige Powell
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“Jean-Michel made this painting for a trade that Bruno set up,” Powell says, referring to the Swiss art dealer Bruno Bischofberger. “I remember it was still wet when it arrived at the studio. Andy didn’t think much of it until they became friends.”
Paige Powell
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“I hosted an art exhibition of Jean-Michel’s works in the apartment I rented from the Gordis family on East 81st Street in April 1983. Can you believe that not all of the paintings sold out on the night of this show? Today any of them would be worth millions. You can see Jean-Michel’s ‘River Nile’ triptych on the wall. I don’t know who the other people are — we would just invite club kids to come hang out with us. I’m hoping that once these photos get out there, people will identify themselves or people they recognize.”
Paige Powell
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“There were no rules on how I dressed — I would wear a kimono to brunch, sometimes I was preppy, sometimes very Portland — in rain boots. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been like this, and my mother never tried to stop me,” says Powell, pictured here with two of Basquiat’s works. “Richard Gere bought one of his paintings from this series at the Terminal Art show for $5,000. It was called ‘Famous.’ I heard a rumor later that he burned it.”
Paige Powell
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“This was an amazing trip we took to Hana, Maui, where we stayed with Jean-Michel’s father, stepmother and sister in these charming plantation-style wooden houses that were owned by some collectors from Texas. Jean-Michel was so happy there. He also made these paintings I helped him apply watercolor to, and then we would throw them in the dryer. I’ve never seen any of them displayed — I wonder what happened to them?”
Paige Powell
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“Susan Hannaford-Rose was the manager at Beulah Land, an art bar on Avenue A and 10th Street. They served food and drink, had performances and had a gallery — it was a great hangout, though it only lasted a couple of years. Susan knew I was doing photography, so she asked me to do something with my friends Benjamin Liu (also known as ‘Ming Vase’) and Jennifer Chaitman. I wanted my installation to look chaotic, like my life in NYC. I pulled 600 to 800 photos, laid them out on the floor and wrote captions, like Instagram today: ‘Big melons.’ ‘Fridge at studio.’ People started ripping the photos off the wall, so I had to replace them. Sometimes they would leave a note for me and post it in its place — it became like a bulletin board. I still don’t have one, but it was like a real-life Facebook page.”
Paige Powell
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“Texarkana on West 10th Street was one of our homes away from home, and Andy took people out to dinner there. Tim and Joey worked at Fiorucci, and Andy loved to shop there because of the fun atmosphere and all the cute kids. Andy really loved Tim. Unfortunately he’s gone now, but Andy did a drawing of his shoe on a napkin at the table that night — like the old illustrations he did in his early career. That’s what Tim is holding up.”
Paige Powell
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“Eric Goode asked Andy to be a part of the ‘Invisible Sculpture’ series, so Andy just stood there in the window alone for 30 minutes while people looked at him behind the glass, or stood around talking and ignoring him. I think he came up with that himself. The windows were pretty cool performance spaces — once there were these girls living in the windows, just doing everyday stuff as if we weren’t all nightclubbing around them.”
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“Nippon restaurant was another regular hangout — not the formal dining room on 52nd Street but the country-style location on 59th Street. It was a soothing place — we went there when we wanted that Zen feeling, and then we’d go to the movies afterwards. Andy admired Grace — she took really good care of herself, didn’t do drugs and was such a hard worker. Does she seem wild? Andy felt really safe around her.”
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“Anita was gorgeous and loyal and a real NYC artist — now an endangered species,” Powell says of Anita Sarko, the Mudd Club DJ pictured here. “We received her RSVP to attend the pre-opening event of ‘The Ride’ in Portland two days before she died. A devastating loss for us all. There is another photo of her in the ‘Beulah Land’ installation.”
Paige Powell
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“I don’t think Andy was particularly close to Sting or Dylan, we just sat together that night — I think it was an after-party for Sting’s concert? All I remember is that it was a jovial group — relaxed and lots of fun. Everyone got along great.”
Paige Powell
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“I took this at Mr. Chow’s original restaurant before Tina took Andy and I to her apartment next door to see her new Balenciaga pieces,” Powell says of Tina Chow, pictured here. “She was just an otherworldly, beautiful creature; she had a natural serenity about her and whatever she wore looked incredible. After Andy died, I ran into her and we exchanged contact info, but a few months later I heard she was ill. Back then, whenever one heard that someone had AIDS, one hoped they would get better. I sent her a ‘Get well’ note. Sadly, I heard she passed away shortly afterwards.”
Paige Powell
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“This was a promotional shoot for Tama Janowitz’s book ‘A Cannibal in Manhattan.’ David LaChapelle did the photography. I called Gerard Basquiat to ask him if he wanted to play the cannibal, and he did. We had so much fun. Jean-Michel got mad at me when he found out.”
Some It-girls of the ’80s may regret that their youthful glory predated social media, but Interview magazine’s former associate publisher Paige Powell doesn’t have to. Powell arrived in New York in 1980 from the Pacific Northwest, looking like a granola version of Edie Sedgwick and armed with the work ethic of Mary Tyler Moore. She was soon swept up in Interview’s bid to be a more serious publication — “At first it was more for friends, like, Fran Lebowitz drove the delivery truck to drop off issues at different newsstands,” she remembers — and Andy Warhol’s select social whirlwind of downtown clubbing, midtown shopping and uptown lunches. “Andy always said, ‘Work is fun and fun is work,’” Powell says. “It was just the way I thought New York City was, all the time, for everyone — exuberant.”
Powell often carried the latest camera or camcorder from Japan with her and used them often to capture intimate snapshots of her coterie: including Warhol, Madonna, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was her boyfriend from 1982 through 1984. For nearly 40 years, she’s been sitting on (“literally; they were stashed in boxes under the bed,” she says) a treasure trove that’s remained largely unexamined. Powell returned to Portland in the ’90s to focus on animal rights advocacy work, and it’s there that her images will be showcased for the first time, in two interactive multimedia installations, “The Ride” and “Beulah Land,” opening this week at the Portland Art Museum. Still in possession of plenty of influential friends, Powell asked David LaChapelle to mix a musical soundtrack for the show and Kenny Scharf to create a signature “Cosmic Cavern” to accompany it. “Half of the photos in the new installation will be from the ’80s, and half will be photos moving forward to the present,” Powell says, noting that the installation is meant to be “interactive,” just like the one she created at the art bar also called Beulah Land in the ‘80s (see slide 7) — visitors can add notes to the walls. “So we’re having a cocktail party for the guards at PAM, to prepare them,” she notes, “because we don’t want them to be alarmed.”
