'The Wedding at Cana' is part of Peter Greenaway’s bold artistic project in which he intends to “visit” – with contemporary sensibility and employing cutting-edge image technology – “Nine classic paintings” among Western art history’s most renowned, from the Renaissance up to Picasso and Pollock. Launching his project with a vision of Rembrandt’s The Nightwatch at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (2006) and then with Leonardo’s The Last Supper in Milan(2008), Greenaway now “visits” The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese at the Palladian Refectory on the San Giorgio Maggiore Island.

The Wedding at Cana facsimile, set in the original architectural context for which it had been conceived – the Palladian Refectory – offers Peter Greenaway the opportunity for an innovative and original interpretation via a state-of-the-art interplay of images, lighting, music, voices and sounds that will seem to emerge directly from the painting and the walls of the Refectory. The performance – a true multimedia event lasting about 50 minutes – makes spectators relive the episode of the marriage feast at Cana where Christ accomplished his first miracle, as narrated in the Gospel of John. Greenaway points out to the public the painting’s scores of characters, from the servants preparing dishes, to the banquet guests, to the guests of honor – Jesus Christ and his mother Mary – seated at the center of the painting’s architectural composition, in an on-going crescendo culminating in the narration’s crucial moment: the miracle of water turning into wine.

As with Leonardo’s The Last Supper, public will access the event in groups and at a specific time (every hour, on the hour) to share a unique and fascinating experience which – involving theater, art and moviemaking – places Peter Greenaway amongst the greatest artists who experiment unflaggingly with new means of expression for the new millennium.

Click here for radio interview with Peter Greenaway (source: BBC )

Download New York Times review here.

Press quotes:

"It is possibly the best unmanned art history lecture you’ll ever experience."
nytimes.com, 25 June 2009

"This latest achievement indicates that he has gone beyond such binary positions to something genuinely new."
guardian.co.uk, 25 June 2009

"Equally mind-boggling is Peter Greenaway’s multiscreened filmic best-art-history-lesson-ever, for which he placed a full-scale replica of Paolo Veronese’s staggering The Wedding at Cana back in the location for which it was painted."
nymag.com, 19 June 2009

"VIRTUALLY MIRACULOUS: ATTENDING 'THE WEDDING AT CANA' "
culturekiosque.com, 25 June 2009

"... the best contemporary art exhibit on view in Venice..."
"I am not sure that it is worth the long flight just to visit Venice for the Biennale, but this work alone, with its layers of meaning, and all surrounding beauty is well worth the jet lag."
artlife.blogspot.com

Venice, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Palladian Refectory
Period: June 6 – August 2 / August 24 – September 13, 2009

Open to public every day on the hour from 11.00 am to 7.00 pm
(Thursday and Friday from 11.00 am to 9.00 pm) until September 12,
with a summer break from August 2 through August 24.