Palazzo Diedo (Cannaregio) in Venezia – Facade on the Rio di Santa Fosca © Didier Descouens
Nicolas Berggruen, a Paris-born collector, is expanding his empire in Venice by purchasing a second historic palace in the city, Palazzo Diedo in the Cannaregio district, which will be transformed into an exhibition venue and artist-in-residence space as part of the new Berggruen Arts & Culture initiative. Sterling Ruby, the first artist-in-residence, will create a "multi-year installation" that will last until 2024, when the palace reopens after renovations.
"At Palazzo Diedo, Berggruen Arts & Culture will host a variety of exhibitions, including some from Nicolas Berggruen's personal collection, as well as installations, symposia, and an artist-in-residence program that will foster the creation of art in Venice," according to a project statement. Artists such as Jason Rhoades and Urs Fischer are represented in Berggruen's collection. Berggruen purchased the historic Casa dei Tre Oci on the island of Giudecca last year, which will serve as the European headquarters for his cultural thinktank, the Berggruen Institute. The Nicolas Berggruen Charitable Trust purchased the prime piece of Venice real estate from the Fondazione di Venezia for the Berggruen Institute. Palazzo Diedo, designed by Andrea Tirali and built for the Diedo family in the early 1700s, was purchased by the city of Venice in 1888. Berggruen's charitable trust also purchased the three-story Palazzo Diedo, which houses frescoes by Venetian artists such as Francesco Fontebasso and Costantini Cedini. The acquisition cost has not been disclosed.
Casa dei tre oci, Venezia © Till Niermann
"We look forward to seeing innovative artists from the city itself and around the world come to Palazzo Diedo to make new work and put forth new ideas, returning Venice to its eminence as a site of artistic creation," Berggruen says in a statement. Former chief curator of the Madre museum in Naples and director of the Anish Kapoor Foundation in Venice, Mario Codognato, has been named artistic director of Berggruen Arts & Culture. Sterling Ruby's A Project in Four Acts will begin with a relief structure that leans across the building's façade and will be on display until November to coincide with the Venice Biennale. "As construction begins, Ruby will stage two exterior installations between the end of 2022 and the late spring of 2023, responding to the structure and enclosing it as it transforms," the project statement continues. The final stage will include a residency that will culminate in an exhibition at Palazzo Diedo as part of the official launch in spring 2024.
"As the building is restored over the next few years," the artist says in a statement, "the installation I've imagined will change with it, expressing and also commenting on what it means to reclaim a building with so much history, and reflecting in a direct, material way the traditions of artmaking and craft that are so much a part of Venice." Nicolas Berggruen, the late German dealer Heinz Berggruen's son, is a member of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's board of directors. The Berggruen Institute, which is based in downtown Los Angeles, focuses on "four big issues: democracy, capitalism, geopolitics and globalisation, and human transformations," according to Berggruen. Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is a member of the institute's governance group.
Jean Dubreil