LATEST AND GREATEST

Dive into Venice’s lively contemporary art scene on a private tour of two of the city’s most popular and prestigious museums. Visitors will have the chance to uncover some of the art world’s very latest creations that have taken root amidst the city’s classic highlights.

Seat of the world-renowned Biennale art exhibition since 1895, Venice keeps inspiring creativity today and has gained an indisputable reputation both locally and abroad as a centre of excellence in the contemporary art world. In spite of its 1,500-year-long history, the city is still a thriving artistic hub that continues to offer an innovative roster of exhibitions as well as exciting art venues and events.

Among Venice’s most cherished and visited museums is the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, hosted inside the 18th century Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, overlooking the Grand Canal in the district of Dorsoduro. Once home to American heiress, art collector, art critic and self-described “art-addict” Peggy Guggenhiem, the museum showcases the private collection indefatigably amassed during Peggy’s lifetime, as well as art pieces from the Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof collection, a sculpture garden and temporary exhibitions. Representative works of Europe and USA’s major avant-garde movements, including Cubism, Futurism, Abstraction, Metaphysical Painting, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism are permanently on display. As you explore the halls of this remarkable museum you will come across compositions by some of the greatest masters of the 20th century, including Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Giorgio De Chirico, Joan Mirò, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalì, Max Ernst and Jackson Pollock. Accompanied by your guide, you will learn to pick out the distinctive traits of influential artists of the 1900s and discover the extraordinary personality and legacy of one of history of art’s most esteemed, epoch-making and visionary patrons.

No less astounding are the feats of today’s trend-setting, living art connoisseurs. Just a few steps away from the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, inside Venice’s former customs house, art enthusiasts on the tour will enrich their knowledge of the city’s vibrant art arena. Renovated in 2009 by Japanese archi-star Tadao Ando, Punta della Dogana temporarily showcases portions of François Pinault’s extraordinary collection of modern and contemporary art as well as personal and collective exhibitions. French businessman, chairman and CEO of luxury group Kering, owner of Christie’s auction house and prominent art collector, François Pinault is one of the leading voices in the field. His incomparable collection comprises more than 3,000 first-rate works from the 20th and 21st centuries and boasts all the big names in the business including Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Ed Ruscha, Takashi Murakami, Urs Fischer and Maurizio Cattelan.