Brooklyn Museum

Venice - June 12-16, 2024

Trip Highlights

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Join Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director, and Dare Turner, Curator of Indigenous Art for the 60th Annual Venice Biennale in celebration of Brooklyn Museum Trustee Jeffrey Gibson. Jeffrey is the first indigenous artist selected to represent the United States and will bring his innovative artistic practice that combines American, Indigenous, and Queer histories with vibrant color and complex patterns to the American Pavilion. In addition to an exclusive tour of the installation with the artist, we will experience the very best of the Floating City.
 
Trip highlights can be found below and a cost structure and sign up sheet are contained within this website.
 
The following flights are recommended:

June 11: 6:40pm: Depart JFK en route to Venice via DL288

June 12: 9:15am: Arrive in Venice

June 16: 1:35pm: Depart Venice for JFK via DL 289,  5:10pm: Arrive at JFK

  • 4-night stay at the 5* St. Regis Venice on the Grand Canal

  • Visit to the Giardini for a tour of the Biennale exhibition curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

  • Special visit to the United States pavilion in the Giardini with the artist and Brooklyn Museum board member, Jeffrey Gibson.

  • Tour of collateral exhibitions at institutions such as Fondazione Giorgio Cini

  • Dinner at Palazzo Nani Bernardo with Countess Elisabetta Lucceschi

  • Tour of the Arsenale site of the Biennale.

St. Regis Hotel, Venice

Avant-garde in outlook and design, The St. Regis Venice merges striking, modern interiors with its historic provenance as the best address in the city. Flanked by the Grand Canal with views across iconic landmarks, the hotel has stood in this privileged position for over a century and a half. 

Jeffrey Gibson

In a historic first, Jeffrey Gibson will represent the United States at the 2024 Venice Biennale, marking the only time in the American Pavilion’s more-than-90-year history that an Indigenous artist has done it solo.

Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and who is also of Cherokee descent, is known for vibrantly colored paintings, sculptures, and more that often incorporate text, some of it appropriated from pop music. At times, the work edges into abstraction, in an attempt to marry styles borrowed from Western modernism and Native American craft.

Giardini

Begun under Napoleon as the city's first public green space, these leafy gardens are now the main home of the Biennale. Around half of the gardens is open to the public all year round; the rest is given over to the permanent Biennale pavilions, each representing a different country. Many of them are attractions in their own right, from Carlo Scarpa's daring 1954 raw-concrete-and-glass Venezuelan Pavilion to Denton Corker Marshall's 2015 Australian Pavilion in black granite.

 

Arsenale

Founded in 1104, the Arsenale soon became the greatest medieval shipyard in Europe, home to 300 shipping companies employing up to 16,000 people. Capable of turning out a new galley in a day, it is considered a forerunner of mass industrial production. Access is only possible during major events and exhibitions such as Carnival, the Arte Laguna Prize and the art and architecture Biennale, when it forms an awesome backdrop to international exhibitions.

  • Dinner at Palazzo Alvera.

  • Tour of the the Pinault Collection at Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana

Palazzo Nani Bernardo

Designed by Architect Vittoria, on commission from the Bernardo family, the Palace was built in 1550
What is now the building's main façade – covered entirety by fresco' s - originally formed the side of the building that overlooked the garden, where Ca' Rezzonico now stands.
Around 200 years ago, the current owner's ancestors added a new Italian garden to the palace, demolishing a series of houses on the side closest to the Grand Canal in the process and gave the Palazzo Nani Bernardo an entirely new, and harmonious aspect that is still evident today.

François Pinault Foundation at the Palazzo Grassi

During the fifteenth century, developments in Venice’s commercial activities led to the Sea Customs House, which had previously been near the Arsenal, being transferred to the western point of Dorsoduro. The building as it stands today was completed in 1682, five years before the nearby Basilia of the Salute. Architect Giuiseppe Benoni’s work is characterised by the tower surmounted by a sculptural group representing two Atlases lifting a golden bronze sphere on the top of which is Fortune, which, by turning, indicates the direction of the wind. The building continued to be a customs house, and thus intrinsically linked to the city’s history, until the 1980s. After twenty years of abandonment, the Venice city council announced a tender to transform it into a contemporary art space. The Pinault Collection was awarded the tender in 2007, and entrusted the restoration of the imposing complex to architect Tadao Ando. In June 2009, after 14 months of work, Punta della Dogana reopened to the public and since then has been presenting temporary exhibitions.