is a new national pavilion for qatar coming to the giardini of the venice biennale?

National Qatar pavilion might be coming to the Venice Biennale

La Biennale di Venezia has announced the proposal to create a new national pavilion for Qatar in its Napoleonic Gardens (Giardini). The proposal comes as a result of the Protocol Cooperation between the Municipality of Venice and Qatar Museums, intended to enhance collaboration in the cultural and socio-economic fields, particularly in the fields of arts.

‘The Venice Biennale is historically the thermometer of geopolitics. The common home of peoples called to the disciplines of contemporary arts that it is, in its places – and in the succession of a history of 130 years – the Biennale restores the exact measure of an era,’ the President of La Biennale di Venezia, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, stated in the announcement. ‘The reading of the world and its transformations – where the Pavilions of the many nations present in Venice are the fresco of that precise destiny that is the future – sees in Doha, today, the artistic tension consistent with the reason proper to the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia’.

Padiglione Centrale Giardini | image by Andrea Avezzu, courtesy La Biennale di Venezia

Qatar Museums and Venice sign for Cultural Cooperation

In June 2024, Qatar Museums (find more here) and the Municipality of Venice signed a Protocol of Cooperation to enhance their cultural and socio-economic collaboration. Recognizing their shared interests, the two parties will engage in activities that enhance cultural heritage, advance knowledge, and promote business investment in art, preservation, sports, and entertainment. Planned activities include exhibitions and seminars on the historical links between Italian and Islamic art and architecture, participation in international festivals, scholarly collaborations like producing art publications and organizing research visits, promoting connections between sports organizations, exhibiting collections, and organizing thematic seminars. In addition, the signed agreement states that both signees are focused on implementing structural interventions ‘aimed at restoring some symbolic parts of the City of Venice.’

This partnership builds on successful collaborations over the past two years. Qatar Museums is currently hosting Your Ghosts Are Mine, Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices, an exhibition at ACP-Palazzo Franchetti, coinciding with the 2024 Art Biennale (find more here) and the Venice International Film Festival. Additionally, they sponsored the Kengo Kuma: Onomatopoeia Architecture exhibition as well as Qatar Creates’ documentary exhibition Building a Creative Nation during the 2023 Architecture Biennale.

installation view of Your Ghosts Are Mine on view at ACP–Palazzo Franchetti | photo by David Levene. courtesy Qatar Museums