Brad Pitt Gives Wonderful Performance As Normie Tourist in Venice
Less than a week after posing up a storm on the Cannes red carpet with Quentin Tarantino and Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt is in the market for some rest and relaxation. For the second time this year, that means a little art sightseeing for the actor and newly minted sculptor. And at the Venice Biennale this week, Pitt appears to be having quite a different experience than he did perusing the booths at Frieze L.A. in February. Perhaps having already met this month’s quota of selfies, he showed up late to the party, blending in with the rest of the non-VIPs who didn’t get an invite to its opening earlier this May.
Of course, Pitt hasn’t gone entirely unnoticed. While his ex-wife Angelina Jolie and their child Shiloh Jolie-Pitt were celebrating the latter’s 13th birthday in an escape room, Pitt was keeping busy with an itinerary so packed that he took to getting his shut-eye on the luxury water limousines in the Venice canals. (Please enjoy this amusing aerial paparazzi photo of Pitt sleeping in a boat.)
During the hours that he was conscious on Tuesday, Pitt paid a visit to the museum of the Palazzo Grimani, where he appears to have stopped by three exhibitions—one of classical sculpture, one of paintings by the Abstract Expressionist Helen Frankenthal, and one of no fewer than 116 paintings of eyes by the the artist Sandro Kopp, who happens to be married to Pitt’s Burn After Reading costar Tilda Swinton. Neither Kopp nor Swinton appear to have been present, though Kopp later shared on Instagram Stories that Pitt’s visit made him “very pleased.”
The artist Sandro Kopp’s Instagram Story of the art restorer Toto Bergamo Rossi and actor Brad Pitt inside Kopp’s exhibition “mEYEcelium,” on view at the Palazzo Grimani Museum in Venice, Italy.
It wasn’t long before Pitt met up with Thomas Houseago, who just might be part of the reason the actor was in Venice in the first place; the sculptor became his art mentor of sorts when Pitt took an interest in sculpting after his split from Angelina Jolie in 2016. Since then, their friendship has only grown: Pitt and Houseago looked perfectly content while on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, where they visited the former monastery that’s now home to the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. They even wore matching newsboy caps!
On Wednesday, the pair was at it again. This time, Pitt and Houseago stopped by the Palazzo Grassi’s exhibition of the artist Luc Tuymans, where they were joined by Houseago’s partner, Muna El Fituri; the show’s curator, Caroline Bourgeois; and the artist Saul Fletcher. Apparently, even the heavy nature of the work—the site-specific mosaic they can be found sprawling across below, for example, references a World War II–era concentration camp—couldn’t crush their spirits.
But that’s not all! On Wednesday, Pitt squeezed in a trip to the province of Treviso, where he visited a cemetery in San Vito di Altivole designed by the architect Carlo Scarpa.
As for what’s up next on his itinerary? Only time will tell. For his sake, though, we sure hope it includes more naps aboard water limos.
Related: Angelina Jolie Celebrated Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s 13th Birthday in an Escape Room
