At Palazzo Franchetti in Venice it is possible to visit, up to March 13th, 2022, the exhibit “Power and Prestige - The Art of Clubs in Oceania”, set up by the Giancarlo Ligabue Foundation and the Musèe du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris.
At display we can find several symbols of power coming mainly from Oceania: sticks for religious purposes or used as weapons, sticks of command or meant to stress personal prestige, all carved and decorated by unknown sculptors.
So various are their forms: curved, straight, round, triangular, anthropomorphic or in the form of animals…
and so many are the materials used for the decorations: mother of pearl, bones and teeth of whales and other cetaceans, used to represent geometric patterns as well as waves, stars, moons, fishes…
These marvelous objects, coming from New Zealand, Easter Island but also from Hawaii, allow us to get in closer touch with such a fascinating, although distant, world.
This is the first ever exhibit dedicated to such sticks. As we walk in the softly lighted halls, all these objects capture our senses and stimulate our curiosity and our desire to travel to those remote places, to understand more about all the different cultures that populated and still populate our Planet Earth.
If you are interested in visiting this exhibition and/or in our guided and private tours of Venice contact us at: info@guidedtoursinvenice.com