Guggenheim Museum (Peggy Guggenheim Collection), Venice

...a useful experience. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection sits on the Grand Canal in Venice and is home to a collection of Cubist, Abstract and Surrealist works. I think it was about five euros to get in (maybe ten, I don't remember), and this gives you access to the inside gallery and the sculpture garden.

The building itself (Peggy Guggenheim's old home) is quite strange; very long and wide with only a basement and a ground floor. This, ...
...never been to any other Guggenheim museums (there is one in Spain, one in Berlin and two in Manhattan, together forming the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation), but having seen this one I think I would like to if I had the chance. If you have no interest whatsoever in art, then to be honest, you won't find this interesting, and it's not a place I would suggest visiting with the kids on a family holiday, but I would recommend visiting to any art fans, ... more

I visited this on a recent trip to Venice and found it to be a useful experience. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection sits on the Grand Canal in Venice and is home to a collection of Cubist, Abstract and Surrealist works. I think it was about five euros to get in (maybe ten, I don't remember), and this gives you access to the inside gallery and the sculpture garden.

The building itself (Peggy Guggenheim's old home) is quite strange; very long and wide with only a basement and a ground floor. This, along with its location, made it a very different experience to other art galleries I have visited. One minute you are in a fairly large white room surrounded with modern art, the next you look out of the window and it appears that you are surrounded with water. Because of the canals and small number of bridges on the Grand Canal, this can fairly hard to find. You can catch a water bus to the nearest stop and walk the rest of the way, or attempt to navigate the narrow windy streets of Venice, up to you.

It is fairly big inside, although it is a lot smaller than many other galleries such as the Tate, etc. Some of the rooms are fairly spacious and some have sofas and places to sit, but other rooms are quite small, and there is also a lot of work dispalyed in the corriders, which means it can get quite congested when it starts to fill up. Also gets a bit stuffy! Everything is white inside, as art galleries sometimes are, so there is nothing to distract from the works on display.

Another thing about the building is that I found it hard to find my way around, it was quite disorientating because everything looks the same. That might just be me though! Was worried in case I had missed some part of it.

It is a fairly small collection containing mostly Cubist and Surrealist movements, but it is an important one, with works by Picasso, Giacometti, Dali, and Jackson Pollock. For me, particular highlights were the works by Max Ernst (including Attirement of the Bride) and Henry Moore's Three Standing Figures, as well as the work by Giacometti and Kandinsky. I don't want to go on for ages analysing the works in the collection. If you are a fan of modern art, particularly the movements and artists I have just mentioned, then there will be plenty for you to see here, and you will probably be able to understand the work better if you see it yourself.

Outside there is a sculpture garden. Again, I found it quite hard to make sure I hadn't missed anything, as there are a lot of hedges, so you can't see where you have or haven't been. Definately worth wandering around though.

There is a cafe, but we didn't bother, it was far too expensive! There is a small gift shop as well, again fairly pricey, selling the usual art gallery stuff: postcards, books, posters, general souvenirs. There is another larger gift shop outside the site, so you can buy books and postcards without actually going to visit the collection. It's the same price and the same stuff. In fact, because it is bigger they actually have more things to buy here than in the smaller one.

I have never been to any other Guggenheim museums (there is one in Spain, one in Berlin and two in Manhattan, together forming the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation), but having seen this one I think I would like to if I had the chance. If you have no interest whatsoever in art, then to be honest, you won't find this interesting, and it's not a place I would suggest visiting with the kids on a family holiday, but I would recommend visiting to any art fans, or even just people who appreciate modern art and like to look at it, esspecially if you have enjoyed visits to similar places. 

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