Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, an ARTnews Top 200 collector, inaugurated a new art site on the island of San Giacomo in Venice’s Northern Lagoon during the rainy preview week of the Biennale. The island, purchased in 2018, features two Napoleonic-era powder magazines transformed into exhibition spaces: one hosting the group show “Don’t have hope, be hope!” from the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection, and the other presenting “Fanfare/Lament,” a solo exhibition by Matt Copson curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist. The site also includes permanent installations by artists such as Claire Fontaine, Mario Garcia Torres, Hugh Hayden, Goshka Macuga, Pamela Rosenkranz, and Thomas Schütte, and will serve as a venue for exhibitions, performances, and residencies.
The opening of San Giacomo Island matters because it expands the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation’s footprint beyond its Turin headquarters and Guarene park, creating a dedicated space for slow-paced artistic research and interdisciplinary dialogue in the Venetian lagoon. The island’s development as a circular ecosystem, in collaboration with Agostino Re Rebaudengo, and its integration with Venice’s public transport system, signals a growing trend of private foundations establishing satellite venues in culturally significant locations. This new site also enriches the Biennale’s surrounding offerings, providing a permanent platform for contemporary art that engages with the island’s layered history from monastery to military outpost.