art and events on the Grand Canal at Palazzo Grassi
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Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana, Venice: a 2023 of art and events on the Grand Canal

Chronorama, a show dedicated to Twentieth century photography, and Icônes, a collective exhibition featuring works of the Pinault Collection that develop the theme of spirituality – in conversation with Mauro Baronchelli, operative director

Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana

Punta della Dogana and Palazzo Grassi are two historical buildings in the heart of Venice, which since the beginning of the 2000s have become houses for a contemporary art museum, currently directed by Bruno Racine.

Palazzo Grassi was the last noble palace to be built on the Grand Canal in the mid 1700 and through the centuries it had been owned by various families, until it was acquired, in 1949, by Italian multinational chemical company Snia Viscosa, owned by Franco Marinotti. It was under his administration that Palazzo Grassi started hosting shows and events, becoming the seat of what was called Centro Internazionale dell’Arte e del Costume (International Center of Art and Costume). The palace underwent some changes: the courtyard was covered with a glass roof, the old floor was replaced with inlaid marble and a theater with an opening roof was built in the garden. From 1951 to 1958 Palazzo Grassi hosted contemporary art and design exhibitions, receptions, conventions and fashion shows. 

In 1983, the palace was purchased by Fiat, which aimed at turning it into a full-time exhibition space and entrusted its renovation to Italian architect Gae Aulenti. She decided to modernize the building without upsetting its original style: for example, various elements were repainted with a water green color in contrast with the pink color of the marble and a new technology plant for heating and air conditioning with lagoon water condensed heat pumps was built. 

François Pinault and restyled by Japanese architect Tadao Andō

The last change of ownership occurred in 2005, when the palace was acquired by French entrepreneur and art collector François Pinault and restyled by Japanese architect Tadao Andō. Thus, Palazzo Grassi, together with Punta della Dogana and the Bourse of Commerce in Paris, welcomed Pinault’s private collection of modern and contemporary art.

Punta della Dogana is the last building overlooking the Grand Canal, characterized by a pointed shape, which was built in the Seventeenth century to serve as Customs for the Republic of Venice. In 2007, the Municipality of Venice entrusted to the Pinault Collection the renovation of the building, which was again accomplished by Tadao Andō. Thus, the lagoon city’s former Customs became the Pinault Collection’s second exhibition space in Venice. Nowadays, Punta della Dogana tends to host collective exhibitions, while Palazzo Grassi focuses more on solo shows. 

Set Up: music and performative arts at Punta della Dogana

Besides art exhibitions, since 2013 Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana also organizes a range of initiatives aimed at analyzing and exploring the contemporary language and its expressions. 

One is Set Up, come to its fourth edition, which is held once every two years at Punta della Dogana and consists in two nights of music and performances: «It is a blink of an eye in the life of the institution, but we wanted people to be able to experience such a suggestive space in a different way once in a while. This is where the idea of Set Up came from». The event lasts for about six hours, from 8pm until 2am, and its schedule aims at creating «an emotive path, a climax that goes from rather intimate performances to more liberatory experiences, where the public is invited to dance and have fun»

The shows that compose this two-nights appointment are deliberately heterogeneous, ranging from dance to theater; from electronic, techno and contemporary music to DJ-set: «In Set Up we are against any form of categorization. Ideally, every visitor should know no more than two-three artists, since we want our public to leave out their artistic prejudices and to discover new things». 

The artists who take part in Set Up are chosen not only according to a principle of variety, but also to the way they can fit in the event space: «Since we have different placements instead of a single stage and our public is not seated, but wanders through the location, we look for a coherence between the performance and the space».

The 2023 edition, which will take place on 3-4 February, features Leïla Ka, Carmen Villain, Marta Cuscunà, Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul, Riccardo Benassi, Nkisi, Andrea Belfi, Mellina Boubetra, Tolouse Low Trax, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp and Deena Abdelwahed.

Lo stato dell’arte: contemporary thinkers reflect on art 

In December 2022 Palazzo Grassi witnessed the inauguration of a new project, entitled Lo stato dell’arte (The state of the art). Since then, every year the institution will commission to an international intellectual considered to be «particularly influential and inspirational» the writing of an unpublished reflection on contemporary art and creativity.

«The project stems from the assumption that today there are a lot of voices talking about contemporary art, but most of them are closed in a specialized world with its own language and codes. Therefore, we decided to look for great thinkers who have never formulated an organic reflection on this topic and to ask them to speak their mind and explain in detail their vision». The works will be first presented at the Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi and then published in cooperation with Italian publishing house Marsilio.

The first edition of Lo stato dell’arte featured Canadian writer Rachel Cusk, who addressed the themes of artistic creation and its connection with gender and marginality, reflecting on the relationship between reality and fiction.

For the 2023 edition Palazzo Grassi chose American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler – «one of the first thinkers to commit to the subject of physicality» – who will present her work on May 10.

Altri Sguardi: culture at the service of integration 

In 2018, in the wake of the growing debate on the reception of refugees and asylum seekers in Italy, Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana launched Altri Sguardi, a project of cultural mediation meant to foster integration of migrants through art and culture. 

«This subject often gets instrumentalized, with the media talking more about numbers rather than people and forgetting that we are dealing with human beings. Such narration made us want to try to approach the problem from a more critical point of view, freeing it from slogans and considering it in all its complexity, because it really is a difficult theme. Since these people come from cultures and backgrounds different from ours – meaning European, Western – we decided to give space to their gaze».

Every year the museum invites migrants living in the area of Venice to cooperate with the staff in one of the exhibitions; the only requisite is to have a basic knowledge of Italian: «We welcome people with different backgrounds, some graduated, others with a low literacy and for many of them this is the first encounter with contemporary art or even with a museum, thus leading to a cultural shock». 

First the candidates are introduced to the exhibition and asked to choose each one of the works to focus on. Then, they elaborate cultural mediation paths based on their personal interpretations of the works they chose. This results in the creation of different narrations that will be presented within the exhibition itself, enabling visitors to look at some of the works through the migrants’ gaze. 

Grand Tour: an international dialogue on mediation: Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana

Speaking of mediation, since 2014 Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana holds every November an international project called Grand Tour, in cooperation with national and international museums or other organizations dealing with contemporary art: «Every year we choose a cultural institution whose mediation and education policies we consider interesting and we invite it to Venice for a couple of days, in order to dialogue with it on such topics. For us the theme of mediation with the public is a key aspect. This is also why we are committed to finding an inclusive language to communicate with our visitors and we develop programs for special publics, such as people with disabilities (for example, we created a specific program for people suffering from Alzheimer), elderly people, young people with a background of addiction or violence, teenagers». 

Grand Tour comprehends events for museum professionals only as well as workshops and initiatives for the general public, thus becoming also an occasion for the local people to experience the proposals of museums from all over the world without leaving Venice. 

Up to now, Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana partnered with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin), Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi (Florence), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Manifesta 12 (Palermo), S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent), MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo (Rome), ECAL (Lausanne) and Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven).

The exhibitions scheduled for 2023 

From May 12 2023 to January 7 2024 Palazzo Grassi will host ‘CHRONORAMA. Photographic Treasures of the 20th Century’, a show dedicated to photography, with four hundred pictures taken by photographers and coming from the archives of Condé Nast, recently acquired by the Pinault Collection. This historical selection will be put into perspective with CHRONORAMA Redux, a project offering a contemporary look at these works from the Pinault Collection through the work of four artists, Tarrah Krajnak, Eric N. Mack, Giulia Andreani, and Daniel Spivakov, as interludes in the chronological tour of the main exhibition.

From April 2 to November 26 2023 Punta della Dogana will host ‘Icônes’, a collective exhibition featuring works of the Pinault Collection that develop the theme of the icon in its spiritual connotation, through various artistic representations: painting, video, sound, installation, performance.  

Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana

Palazzo Grassi (Campo San Samuele, 3231) and Punta della Dogana (Dorsoduro 2), Venice, are the two Italian headquarters of the Pinault Collection, dedicated to modern and contemporary art. In these two renovated historical buildings located on the Grand Canal the French institution organizes temporary exhibitions, conferences, workshops and cultural mediation projects for different publics. 

Debora Vitulano

The writer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article.

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