When the art world touches down in Italy for the 2017 Venice Biennale, one of the city’s must-see collateral events promises to be Damien Hirst at the Pinault Collection, opening April 9, 2017.
There are next to no details available at the moment, but the show promises to showcase Hirst’s latest project, which has been 10 years in the making, according to the press release.
The exhibition of new work will appear at both of the collection’s Venice venues, the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana, marking the first time that a single artist will take over both spaces.
Damien Hirst, Where Are We Going? Where Do We Come From? Is There a Reason? (2000–04). Courtesy of Damien Hirst.
The exhibition is the latest entry in the institution’s series of monographic shows, which have previously included Urs Fischer (2012), Rudolf Stingel (2013), Martial Raysse (2015), and Sigmar Polke (2016). Elena Geuna, who served as curator for all of those exhibitions, will do the same for Hirst.
It will be Hirst’s first solo show in Italy since his 2004 retrospective at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, but not the first time he’s shown with the Pinault Collection. In 2006, his piece Where Are We Going? Where Do We Come From? Is There a Reason? (2000–04), a steel and glass display case full of animal skeletons, was shows at the Palazzo Grazzi’s inaugural exhibition, the group show “Where Are We Going?” Hirst’s work has featured in other group shows organized by the institution in the years since.
Palazzo Grassi. Courtesy of the Pinault Collection, © Matteo De Fina.
Hirst, who is one of the most expensive British artists at auction, was also in the news this month when the Newport Street Gallery, which houses his art collection, won the Royal Institute of British Architects’s RIBA Stirling Prize.