Billionaire Francois Pinault needed somewhere special to display his contemporary-art collection, the venerable Palazzo Grassi on Venice's Grand Canal. François Pinault, the French owner of myriad department stores as well as Christie's, Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, had originally planned to build his own $195 million museum, designed by Tadao Ando, on an island in the Seine southwest of Paris. But, last May, after five years of wrestling with red tape, he abandoned the project in frustration.
"Eternity is for art, not for projects that aim to serve it," he noted at the time.
So it is in Venice that the publicity-shy mogul is showing part of his vast art collection for the first time. Pinault has chosen to focus on crucial artists of the last half-century, from Mark Rothko, Donald Judd, Gerhard Richter and Lucio Fontana to Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. Few museums could offer such an overview. And, inevitably, the show has whetted the appetite of contemporary- art lovers to discover the rest of his collection. Venice may be better known for its Titians and Tintorettos, but it is also home to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection of modern art and the high-profile Venice Biennale of contemporary art.
"Eternity is for art, not for projects that aim to serve it," he noted at the time.
So it is in Venice that the publicity-shy mogul is showing part of his vast art collection for the first time. Pinault has chosen to focus on crucial artists of the last half-century, from Mark Rothko, Donald Judd, Gerhard Richter and Lucio Fontana to Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. Few museums could offer such an overview. And, inevitably, the show has whetted the appetite of contemporary- art lovers to discover the rest of his collection. Venice may be better known for its Titians and Tintorettos, but it is also home to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection of modern art and the high-profile Venice Biennale of contemporary art.
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