The new cultural hub in Venice by Berggruen Arts & Culture adds another chapter to the story of Palazzo Diedo, in the heart of the city. Mario Codognato, director of Berggruen Arts & Culture and curator, together with Adriana Rispoli, of the exhibition running until 24 November 2024, talks about it

Built around the middle of the 18th century, Palazzo Diedo has had various uses: from a private home to a primary school, from the headquarters of the surveillance court to an exhibition and artistic research centre. This, in fact, is the current identity of Palazzo Diedo thanks to the intervention of philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen. Mario Codognato, director of Berggruen Arts & Culture, delves into the past and present history of Palazzo Diedo against the backdrop of the Janus exhibition, which brings together the works of eleven contemporary artists.

BIO
Mario Codognato has served as the Chief Curator of MADRE since it opened in Naples in 2005. In this capacity, he has curated retrospectives of Jannis Kounellis (2006), Rachel Whiteread (2007), Thomas Struth (2008) and Franz West (2010) among others. He has previously worked at the contemporary art project at the Archeological Museum in Naples, where he has curated the exhibitions of Francesco Clemente (2002), Jeff Koons (2003), Anish Kapoor (2003), Richard Serra (2004), Anselm Kiefer (2004) and the first museum retrospective of Damien Hirst (2004). Since 1999 he has curated the site-specific public projects for Piazza Plebiscito in Naples, including Robert Rauschenberg (1999), Joseph Kosuth (2001), Sol Lewitt (2005), Jenny Holzer (2006), Jan Fabre (2008) and Carsten Nicolai (2009). He has curated exhibitions for other institutions and written their catalogue essays on the work of Alighiero Boetti (1992 and 1999), Richard Long (1994 and 1997), Gilbert & George (1998), Jan Fabre (1999), Brice Marden (2001), Wolfgang Laib (2005), Candida Hoeffer (2013), Douglas Gordon (2017) and Ed Ruscha (2019). He has curated several thematic exhibitions, Barock at MADRE in 2009 and Fragile? at the Cini Foundation in Venice in 2013. From 2014 to 2016 he was Chief Curator at the 21er Haus of the Belvedere in Vienna, where his shows include retrospective exhibitions of Olafur Eliasson, Tomás Saraceno and Sterling Ruby, and the exhibition Sleepless on the history and role of the bed in art. Latest projects include Anish Kapoor at Macro in Rome (2017) and Houghton Hall in Norfolk (2019), Damien Hirst at Houghton Hall in Norfolk (2018), Galleria Borghese in Rome (2021), and Georg Baselitz at the Museum Palazzo Grimani in Venice (2021). Since 2016, Codognato has been the Director of the Anish Kapoor Foundation and since 2022 the Director of Berggruen Arts & Culture.

Filming and video editing: Matteo Catania, Hubove Studio

Cover photo: Mario Codognato. Photo Matteo Catania. Hubove Studio