ARMCHAIR JOURNEY

Venice Edited by Heather Reyes Oxygen Books, 256pp, $19.95

Venice out to get back on top

THE Australian director John Hillcoat's The Road, an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's apocalyptic novel starring Kodi Smit-McPhee, Viggo Mortensen and Guy Pearce, heads a list of high-profile premieres at the Venice Film Festival, which opens tomorrow.

THE SPACE VISUAL ARTS

FLASH ISSUE 2

Grandma Gets Ready To Hand Over Her Tools

AFTER 15 years working as a volunteer in the gardens at West Wallsend Public School, grandmother Mrs Venice Adams is hoping other people are ready to take on the role.

Kids In The Kitchen Head To Venice

An innovative culinary exchange program has given a small group of hospitality students from a Catholic college in Dandenong a rare opportunity to further develop their cooking skills in Venice - a city known for its rustic food as much as its gondolas.

The Merchant Of Venice: A Graphic Novel

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE: A GRAPHIC NOVEL

Surprise Driver In Charge Of The Bus

OXIANA'S $12 billion merger with Zinifex - codenamed Venice - came as no surprise. But the fact that it will be Zinifex's urbane chief executive, Andrew Michelmore, and not Oxiana's bustling chief, Owen Hegarty, who will be managing director of the new group was a surprise.

Love's Gondola Sank

VENICE the city of bust-ups.

Stately Sounds Of Venice

MUSIC REVIEW: CHRISTMAS TO CANDLEMAS Ensemble Gombert, Xavier Chapel, December 15 www.ensemblegombert.com.au

Good Night And No Good Luck

The Australian Women's Team (Candice Feitelson-Cathy Mill, Elizabeth Havas-Barbara Travis, Rena Kaplan-Paula Schroor, Simon Hinge non-playing captain) started well enough in the 2007 Venice Cup in Shanghai.

The Bellini

Giovanni Bellini was a prolific Italian painter whose works grace churches across Venice and the nearby island of Murano. Bellini was also a mentor to the even more famous Tiziano Vercelli, better known as Titian. Neither of these great Renaissance artists would have suspected that the name Bellini would also be immortalised in a cocktail (right). And such an elegantly simple beverage at that. Combining one part fresh peach juice and two parts chilled prosecco - a crisp, sparkling wine from the ...

Architecture Team Chosen For The 'other' Venice Biennale

THE Venice Biennale is synonymous with the visual arts on an extravagant, and extravagantly avant garde, scale. Perhaps less known is that every second year the Venice Biennale becomes the centre stage for world architecture.

24 Hours In Dubrovnik

Most of your day in Dubrovnik will be spent in the old town, a World Heritage-listed, medieval, walled city, once called Ragusa, that was a major port and trading centre for more than 500 years, originally under the control of Venice, but later flourishing as an independent republic.

Venice Expo Opening Doors

The mood is up among Australian artists and dealers, Megan Backhouse reports from the Venice Biennale.

Setting Storr By The Art, Not Marketing

Amid the Biennale's dizzying array of shows, Australian works still manage to stand out, Megan Backhouse writes from Venice.

Entrance Work Creates A Data Dilemma

THE man who predicts the Venice-effect is coming to Lake Illawarra says we need to adapt to the risks of climate change.

Small Tallk

HOLLYWOOD actor Christian Slater says he's glad the days of being in the spotlight for drunken nights are over. The 37-year-old, who stars alongside party girl Lindsay Lohan in his latest film Bobby, admits he enjoys the freedom of not being chased by the paparazzi after a night out. "It's pretty hilarious to kind of be on the outside and observe it," he said. "When we were promoting the film in Venice they were talking about her underwear and stuff, it's insane. It's nice to have things a little ...

The Age Wins Winter Masterpieces Partnership

The Age has won the newspaper sponsorship of the National Gallery of Victoria's Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition this year, titled Guggenheim Collection: 1940s to Now, New York-Venice- Bilbao-Berlin, which will be held at NGV International from June 30 to October 7.

Cellist Faces Her Toughest Workout Yet

WHEN Catherine Hewgill suddenly found her legs slipping from under her in the car park of the Sydney Opera House, her instinctive reaction was to protect her 300-year-old cello - made in Venice in 1729 by Carlo Tononi and worth the equivalent of a small Sydney house.

Herpes Gets More Headlines Than Architecture

OUR National Architecture Week, for anyone who didn't notice, came to a close last week. Two weeks ago we had World Architecture Day. In Sydney and in Venice, exhibitions have been timed to coincide with these calendar high points. Yet all these together attracted less attention than last week's Herpes Day, the running sore of special events.