Art by the sea: exhibitions in Venice

Whether it's a swimming-pool mosaic, a mural, a ceramic vase or a piece of Schiaparelli Surrealist jewellery, the creative world is riding a Jean Cocteau wave, with designers and makers lapping up his liquid lines, silhouetted nudes and interpretations of classical mythology. 

But the prodigiously talented Cocteau (1889-1963) has always loomed large in the imagination, ever since the Frenchman first started sketching, sculpting and making. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice is paying tribute to this avant garde trailblazer in the current exhibition "The Juggler's Revenge", the largest Cocteau retrospective to be shown in Italy. 

The mischievous title is taken from Philippe Halsman's celebrated portrait, commissioned for Life magazine in 1949, picturing the auteur with a multitude of arms to symbolise his restless spirit and mastery of many art forms spanning poetry, novels, filmmaking, drawings, jewellery, tapestries, books, photographs and graphics. Back in the 1930s, Cocteau was dubbed a dilettante. Today, he might be called a polymath or a Renaissance man. 

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Yet the organiser of the exhibition, Cocteau specialist and New York University art historian Kenneth E. Silver, is at odds with these terms. "His astonishing artistic range – for which, in his lifetime, he was often criticised for spreading himself too thin – now looks prescient, a model for the kind of wide-ranging cultural fluidity we expect of contemporary artists. All this, in addition to his more-or-less forthright homosexuality, as well as his very public struggles with drug addiction, make him look especially modern. Perhaps the world has finally caught up with Jean Cocteau," says Silver, who skilfully weaves a portrait of the man through over 150 exhibits that surface his lifelong fascination with Orpheus and poetry, classicism, Eros, cinema and fashion through the gallery spaces. 

Cocteau said of himself, "I am a lie that tells the truth," and he worked with myths to reveal those truths. His aesthetic offers the viewer superficial pleasure as well as a game of hide and seek, and his puzzles still mesmerise today. Amongst his masterpieces are novels such as "Le Livre Blanc"; films including "Le Sang d'un Poète", with Lee Miller as a Greek statue that comes to life; and the play "La Machine Infernale", a reinterpretation of Oedipus Rex. One might add the extraordinary masks he made for the performance of Antigone. Crafted in metal, mesh, stones and pipe cleaners, these delicate headpieces have the mystique of totems. 

What is also fascinating to see is his commercial work. Like Andy Warhol, he embraced the world of branding and advertising, creating everything from zodiac-sign matchbox covers for Seita to book jackets and packaging for Alexandre de Paris, designs for Cartier (the sponsor of this show) and film posters. There's a collection of vibrant photographs that document his life and his extraordinary circle including Coco Chanel, Man Ray, Marc Chagall and Picasso.

The location could not be more fitting as patron, friend and collector Peggy Guggenheim gave the dashing French artist the inaugural exhibition at her newly opened London gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, in early 1938. The pair met through Guggenheim's friend and artistic advisor Marcel Duchamp, who installed the show, which featured a painted bedsheet with a line portrait of the actor Jean Marais and anonymous fellows embellished with real pubic hairs. "La peur donnant des ailes au courage" caused a scandal and had to be removed to Guggenheim's private office for select viewing.

In turn, Cocteau frequently visited Venice, gathering inspiration for a whole body of drawings also on show. As W.H. Auden commented, Cocteau's work excites elation and intrigue. "Happiness is a surer sign of wisdom than we are apt to think, and perhaps Cocteau has more of it than some others." guggenheim-venice.it/en

What else to see 

Fondazione Giorgio Cini

One of the oldest living artists, 96-year-old Alex Katz is the subject of a major show at Fondazione Giorgio Cini. "Claire, Grass and Water" features works created between 2021 and 2022. One is based on the clothes of mid-century American fashion designer Claire McCardell, with large-scale depictions of inky oceans and grassy terrain. cini.it/en

Museo Correr

Museo Correr in Venice is hosting "Musei delle Lacrime" ("Museums of Tears"), conceived by Francesco Vezzoli and curated by Donatien Grau. It explores Vezzoli's practice of embroidering tears onto iconic artworks, which began 30 years ago. 'It's my way of liberating this symbolically charged fluid within the realm of art history,' says Vezzoli. correr.visitmuve.it/en/home

Pinault Collection

Bringing our perception of reality into frame, Pierre Huyghe has transformed the Punta della Dogna into a fictional land inhabited by human and non-human creatures. Fictions, to him, are 'vehicles for accessing the possible or the impossible – what could be or could not be,' and he works with AI to co-author the installations, entitled Liminal, that question man's place on Earth. pinaultcollection.com

A version of this article appears in The Blend, distributed with The Week magazine.