Palazzo Grassi + Pinault Collection

Palazzo Grassi 12.03.2023 — 07.01.2024

CHRONORAMA. PHOTOGRAPHIC TREASURES OF THE 20TH CENTURY

“CHRONORAMA. Photographic Treasures of the 20th Century” is the first world exhibition dedicated to the photographic treasures recently acquired by the Pinault Collection and Condé Nast archives, some of which have never before been seen by the general public. The exhibition presented at Palazzo Grassi brings together a selection of 407 works made between 1910 and 1979, arranged in chronological order, showing women, men, historical moments, daily life, dreams, and dramas of the 20th century.

“CHRONOR AMA” represents the fleeing time and the visual trace it leaves through the images made by more than 150 international artists such as Edward Steichen, Berenice Abbott, Cecil Beaton, Lee Miller, André Kertész, Horst P. Horst, Diane Arbus, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, among photographers, Eduardo Garcia Benito, Helen Dryden and George Wolfe Plank, among illustrators.

Pinault Collection “ICÔNES” 02.04.23 — 26.11.23

Punta della Dogana presents the thematic exhibition “Icônes,” curated by Emma Lavigne, CEO of the Pinault Collection, and Bruno Racine, CEO and Director of Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana. The exhibition presents mainly emblematic works from the Pinault Collection and offers a reflection on the theme of the icon and the status of the image in the contemporary world. The word “icon” has two meanings: its Greek etymology defines it as “image,” while it is used to designate a certain type of religious painting that characterizes Eastern Christianity in particular. The idea of a model, an emblematic figure is more contemporary. The status of the image-its ability to embody a presence, between appearance and disappearance, shadow and light, to represent a space, to evoke an emotion, a transcendence-is at the heart of this exhibition, conceived specifically for Punta della Dogana and for the Venetian context, marked by its close ties to Byzantium.

The exhibition pays special attention to the relationship between the city of Venice and the icon. Since the end of the Middle Ages, Venetian art has been a synthesis of various influences-particularly Byzantine, Gothic, and Flemish-that reflect the Serenissima’s role as a bridge between East and West. Even today, Venice remains a crossroads where multiple horizons meet and hybridize, providing fertile ground for creation. It is thus a recurring source of inspiration for some of the artists on display, such as Danh Vo and James Lee Byars. Some works are anchored in this context because they revive the memory of works exhibited during previous editions of the Venice Art Biennale, such as Lygia Pape’s golden threads of Ttéia or Joseph Kosuth’s textual and conceptual illuminations in 2007 in San Lazzaro degli Armeni, Venice. The art of Orthodox Russia, through the poetics of Tarkovski and his film Andrei Roublev, dedicated to the 15th-century icon painter, is also reflected in the exhibition, which questions the ability of images to embody, in the director’s words, “the idea of the absolute freedom of man’s spiritual potential” and the search for “harmony in a humanity that had none.” The art of the icon tends to express, according to him, “the need for a particular look at certain spiritual problems,” and to make sense of what remains in the immeasurable darkness of an invisible world. The filmmaker’s thought, rooted in the substrate of images, brings into play the question of the future of the invisible and the spiritual in a contemporary world, and the exhibition also makes visible the influence of other spiritualities that, from Asia to Africa, from Brazil to the United States, continue to nourish the works of the artists gathered.