{"id":395576,"date":"2026-04-24T15:01:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T15:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/395576\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T15:01:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T15:01:07","slug":"this-sustainable-island-is-venices-newest-art-oasis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/395576\/","title":{"rendered":"This \u2018Sustainable\u2019 Island Is Venice\u2019s Newest Art Oasis"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a distance, across the opalescent waters of the Venetian lagoon, the cluster of low red-brick buildings looks like a factory or a boatyard. It\u2019s only when you get closer and see the huge silver space rocket, the fluorescent pink tree and the neon sign that reads \u201cPATRIARCHY = CO2<\/a>\u201d that you realize this island is the latest addition to Venice\u2019s ever-expanding array of prestigious contemporary art venues.<\/p>\n

The 130,000-square-foot island of San Giacomo in Paludo<\/a>, 20 minutes by boat from Venice\u2019s historic center, has been transformed into an arts complex by the Italian contemporary art collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. Venice is the third exhibition hub for her Turin-based foundation<\/a>, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year.<\/p>\n

The renovated and repurposed island is set to open on May 7, during the preview of the 61st Venice Biennale<\/a>, with \u201cFanfare\/Lament,\u201d a solo show by the British multimedia artist Matt Copson, and a group exhibition of highlights from the foundation\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cVenice has always been part of my dreams,\u201d Sandretto Re Rebaudengo said in an interview on the island this week. The first show she ever organized was in the city during the 46th Venice Biennale<\/a> in 1995, she said. It kept drawing her back, she added, because \u201cVenice is a stage at the center of the international contemporary art scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stylishly attired in a lilac jumpsuit and turquoise necklace, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo was surrounded by workers busily trying to complete the island\u2019s buildings and installations in time for the opening in less than three weeks. More than 100 of them have been working on the project, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be ready,\u201d she added firmly.<\/p>\n

Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and her husband, Agostino Re Rebaudengo, the president of the Asja green energy company, bought San Giacomo in 2018. It was once a prosperous staging post<\/a> on a pilgrimage route but became a gunpowder store after Napoleon\u2019s army overtook Venice. The island was in military use until 1961 and then lay deserted and derelict for almost six decades.<\/p>\n

Sandretto Re Rebaudengo said she said she wanted to give \u201cnew life\u201d to San Giacomo, \u201cbut in a respectful way\u201d \u2014 which meant transforming it into \u201ca very sustainable island.\u201d<\/p>\n

Napoleon\u2019s three ruined gunpowder magazines yielded 30,000 bricks that were hand-cleaned and reused for external paving. A dozen buildings have been constructed, including exhibition and performance spaces, a service block, and residential quarters for the collector\u2019s family and guests. There is a vegetable garden and a vineyard. A reactivated well provides fresh water. All of the island\u2019s energy is produced using renewable resources on-site, according to Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.<\/p>\n

But, as others point out, environmental sustainability is one thing, and cultural sustainability another, especially at a time when wealthy private collections<\/a>, rather than public institutions, increasingly shape the way that art is made and viewed. The curator and writer Konstantin Akinsha, who has a home in Venice, said that grandiose private museums in the city like Fran\u00e7ois Pinault\u2019s Palazzo Grassi<\/a> and Punta della Dogana<\/a>, filled with works by international stars, felt \u201cless embedded than deposited \u2014 installed in Venice, but not of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Akinsha said that in a depopulating city<\/a> that has become a \u201cspectacular backdrop for the global culture industry,\u201d San Giacomo could make a difference by focusing more on local artists \u201crather than reproducing the same detached, imported model.\u201d Otherwise, he added, the project will be \u201cjust another enclave, and the city will remain a stage set with no audience left to call it home.\u201d<\/p>\n

To guard against globalization\u2019s homogenizing effect on the art world, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo founded and leads the 20-member Committee of Contemporary Art Foundations<\/a>, which aims, according to its website, to enhance and promote \u201cItaly\u2019s artistic and cultural heritage \u2014 with particular reference to contemporary art.\u201d Her own foundation\u2019s annual international Young Curators\u2019 Residency Program<\/a> seeks to \u201cspread the awareness of the Italian artistic scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

On San Giacomo, she has set aside 10 rooms for curator and artist residencies. \u201cWe want to invite artists who pay attention to the moment in which we live,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is how we started 30 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Josh Kline<\/a>, whose much-discussed essay<\/a> about the affordability crisis for artists in New York was published this year in October magazine, is one of 2,000 artists who have benefited from Sandretto Re Rebaudengo\u2019s patronage. In 2016, her foundation showed Kline\u2019s installation \u201cUnemployment,\u201d<\/a> which envisions the devastation of the jobs market by artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatrizia\u2019s support before the pandemic made many of my most well-known works possible,\u201d Kline said in an email. \u201cThe conditions I describe in my recent essay are shutting down radical, experimental art,\u201d he added. \u201cPatrizia is doing the opposite: backing artists over decades, and funding large-scale ambitious projects. This is what real patronage looks like, and it\u2019s getting rarer.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Giacomo will initially be open to the public for about four to five months a year. Access will be free, and visits will be led by trained guides, like in Turin, where 30,000 schoolchildren and students<\/a> visit the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo foundation each year. Line 12 of Venice\u2019s water bus service will stop at San Giacomo on request to encourage local community engagement.<\/p>\n

The project\u2019s island setting, in the shallow waters of Venice\u2019s Northern Lagoon, presents environmental challenges. Although the construction of the city\u2019s flood-defense barrier<\/a> has stabilized the tides, the average sea level continues to rise. As a precautionary measure, the entire island of San Giacomo has been raised three feet with reused materials from the site.<\/p>\n

Sandretto Re Rebaudengo said she wanted the \u201cisolation, slowness, beauty and vulnerability of the lagoon\u201d to be the \u201cdefining elements\u201d of her program on the island. She also seems to understand that today\u2019s artists increasingly share that same sense of vulnerability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From a distance, across the opalescent waters of the Venetian lagoon, the cluster of low red-brick buildings looks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1228,442,498,499,500,203983,501,156,111,139,69,204392,204391,204393],"class_list":{"0":"post-395576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-collectors-and-collections","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-patrizia","20":"tag-sandretto-re-rebaudengo","21":"tag-venice-italy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}