LAUNCH OF GIUDECCA ART DISTRICT, FEATURING THREE NATIONAL PAVILIONS, TO COINCIDE WITH FIFTY-EIGHTH VENICE BIENNALE

The island of Giudecca in Venice, Italy, will host eleven galleries—including Studiolacitta, Chiesa delle Zitelle, Starak Foundation, Spazio Bullo, Spazio Raunich, and Spazio Silos—and the national pavilions of Estonia, Iceland, and Nigeria during this year’s Venice Biennale. Billed as the city’s first permanent art quarter, Giudecca Art District will also be the home of a new space called the Giudecca Art District Gallery and Garden. Five more galleries that will open on Giudecca island will be announced next month. 

“The island of Giudecca has an incredible legacy as a platform for nurturing contemporary art and we are thrilled to placing all of its current galleries and future projects under one umbrella of Giudecca Art District,” Pier Paolo Scelsi, codirector of the Giudecca Art District with fellow Venice-based art director Valentina Gioia Levy, told Artnews. “We want to give Venice back to Venetians and art lovers around the world by creating one united art quarter that is a go-to destination for anyone visiting the city.” 

Previously, the island was the site of Marina Abramović’s first performance, Relation in Space, in 1976 and Ai Weiwei’s 2013 biennial exhibition, “Disposition,” which was held at the island’s Zuecca Project Space. After the biennial kicks off in May, more than twenty exhibitions with work by sixty international artists—including Aleksandra Karpowicz and October! Collective—will be presented on the island.