In 1751 Pietro Longhi painted this portrait (now in the Ca' Rezzonico museum, Venice) of the rhinoceros, Clara, brought to the Venice Carnevale that year. He depicted the animal, eating quietly, indifferent to its owner (carrying the animal's horn which had rubbed off) and to the masked and other spectators in the casotto behind it.
Nearly three centuries' later the rhinoceros returns to Venice in the form of a symposium, Beauty and the Beast: Venice and the Rhino, on 24 November and an accompanying exhibition, Rhinoceros: Luxury's Fragile Frontier, 24 November-21 December, both at the Palazzo Contarini Polignac and both under the overall curation and organization of Catherine Kovesi.
The exhibition title reveals the central theme. Both Venice and the rhinoceros are now luxury objects and both are threatened by the desire they evoke. The symposium brings together artists, conservationists, poets, writers, and historians to explore the unexpected intersections between these two endangered objects of luxury consumption. The exhibition presents the works of Gigi Bon and Shih Li Jen, two artists concerned about issues of fragility and identity in relation to their personal and wider worlds and that of the rhinoceros. Their scuptural creations will be framed against the background of a 'demand reduction' marketing campagin by wildlife warrior Lynn Johnson which targets the consumption of rhino horn. Points of reflection in the exhibition are provided by Canadian poet, Ronna Bloom, whose poems on Venice, the rhino, and fragility, were commissioned for the exhibition.
