VENICE.- Palazzo Diedo, Venice’s first major new space dedicated to contemporary art for more than a decade, launches with the unveiling of site-specific commissions by 11 internationally acclaimed artists - Urs Fischer, Piero Golia, Carsten Höller, Ibrahim Mahama, Mariko Mori, Sterling Ruby, Jim Shaw, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Aya Takano, Lee Ufan and Liu Wei - on 20 April 2024.
Following major restoration of the Palazzo, Janus, the inaugural exhibition, and two special projects, presented in partnership with New York City’s The Kitchen and the Polaroid Foundation, respectively, will coincide with the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2024.
The artists’ interventions have been conceived in response to the architecture and original features of the 18th-century building by architect Andrea Tirali, once home to one of Venice’s most powerful families and formerly a primary school and court. The works are often inspired by traditional crafts associated with Venice, such as frescos, Murano glass, precious fabrics and Venetian floor design. And, the exhibition takes its name from Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, often seen with two faces, one looking forward and the other backwards, symbolic of the exhibition’s aims to bring the historical and contemporary together.
Janus at the Palazzo Diedo will be the first opportunity to see Mariko Mori’s Peace Crystal: A Prayer for Peace, before it is unveiled to the public in the Giardini of Palazzo Corner della Ca’ Granda in San Marco one month into the biennale on 13 May. The work is the third in a series with the Faou Foundation and the exhibition at Diedo will include a film of previous installations in Japan and Brazil, and a model and scroll of Peace Crystal to give the viewer deeper insight into the work.
Simultaneously, celebrated New York interdisciplinary cultural institution The Kitchen will present a solo presentation by Rhea Dillon (b.1996). The London-based artist and writer’s work often examines the ways Blackness is conceptualised in an aesthetic and theoretical practice. Previously, The Kitchen presented Dillon’s film (Working Title) Browning 2025; here, they expand their relationship with Dillon in a new constellation of sculptural work.
The Polaroid Foundation will invite the exhibiting artists to create an original work using the world’s largest instant camera, the Polaroid 20x24. Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, Jim Dine, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Mary Ellen Mark, Mickalene Thomas, Robert Frank, Robert Mapplethorpe, Robert Rauschenberg and Sally Mann are among the artists who have worked with this iconic, over-sized camera in the past. Veteran camera operator John Reuter. Reuter, who has operated the camera since 1980, will support the artists as they produce images of 20 x 24 inch (50 x 60 cm) for Palazzo Diedo.
Palazzo Diedo also features a small cinema which will screen a film by artist Koo Jeong A, representing South Korea at this year’s biennale, every Thursday until November.
Over the last two years, Berggruen Arts & Culture has completed a major restoration of Palazzo Diedo, sympathetic to its history while readying it for a new beginning as a space of creativity and inspiration. Two significant fresco cycles and a Roman capricci - a scene that combines historical and fictional elements - by Francesco Fontebasso (1707-1769) and Costantino Cedini (1741-1811) have been fully restored. In 2022, Sterling Ruby presented the first project at Palazzo Diedo, a facade-based sculpture called HEX, installed before the completion of the restoration.
Established by Berggruen Arts & Culture, a charitable foundation set up by collector and philanthropist Nicolas Berggruenn, Palazzo Diedo aims to deepen the connection between contemporary art and the past, and between East and West. It will host artist residencies, exhibitions, events, film and performance across five levels and a total area of 4,000 square metres.
Nicolas Berggruen, collector and founder of the Berggruen Institute, said: “Venice has historically been a catalyzer for creativity, ideas, experimentation, and exchanges. With Berggruen Arts & Culture, we aim to revive the making of artefacts, to animate the extraordinary treasure which is Palazzo Diedo.
“Together with the Berggruen Institute, which hosts debates and a residency programme at Tre Oci, we see Venice again as a generator of culture and ideas. Janus symbolises our commitment to build on the past in a contemporary way.”
Mario Codognato, Director, Berggruen Arts & Culture and exhibition curator, said: “Venice is world-renowned for exhibiting contemporary art and for its culture of historic art traditions. Palazzo Diedo will add to that already impressive landscape through its new galleries as well as bringing something new - artists studios. The spaces will enable artists to submerge themselves in the traditions and atmosphere of a city forever located in another era in extended residencies. I am truly excited to see what will emerge.”
Janus is curated by Mario Codognato, Director of Berggruen Arts & Culture and Adriana Rispoli, Curator of Berggruen Arts & Culture.
In 2021, Nicolas Berggruen also acquired Casa dei Tre Oci, Venice, to become the European centre of the Berggruen Institute - a house of ideas and place for global dialogue presenting an international programme of summits, workshops, symposia, and exhibitions. The Institute's Tre Oci and the Gallerie dell'Accademia will jointly present masterworks from the Berggruen Museum Berlin, in the show Elective Affinities: Picasso, Matisse, Klee and Giacometti across both venues from 24 March to 23 June 2024.
