Fondazione dei Musei Civici di Venezia and Louis Vuitton renew the signature of a long-term partnership creating links between ancient and contemporary art
The Fondazione Muve and Louis Vuitton have renewed their partnership on the occasion of the exhibition dedicated to Tintoretto, the realisation of which has been backed by the Maison. Support for the exhibition started in 2017 with the restoration of two paintings by Jacopo Tintoretto, both entitled Portrait of two senators (1570). For a long time kept in the Correr’s storerooms, the works will now be put on public display once more. They are important examples of the artist’s “state” portraiture.
The collaboration between the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and Louis Vuitton, begun in 2013, has the common goal of supporting the restoration of important works of art belonging to the Venetian art-historical heritage, and to return them to the inhabitants of the city in their original splendour. Some of the restored works have exceptionally been exhibited in the Espace Louis Vuitton Venice, the cultural space located within the Maison Louis Vuitton in St Mark’s Square, with the aim of establishing an innovative dialogue between the contemporary art scene and classical art, thanks to the collaboration of international artists, invited to interpret the restored works.
The comparison between the art of yesterday and that of today, together with numerous restoration works, started with Pompeo Molmenti’s The death of Othello (1866), and continued with that of the Madonna and Child (1487) and Pietà (1489) by Vittore Carpaccio. Subsequently, photographs from the collection of Mariano Fortuny were restored as were, in 2015, some lunettes by Francesco Hayez; these were followed by the restoration of an Andrienne dress (seventeenth century) once belonging to a Venetian lady. Louis Vuitton has established an innovative dialogue with classical art, contributing to a celebration of its extraordinary vitality and topicality and returning often forgotten works to the city of Venice in a process of rediscovery made possible by restoration, making them newly accessible to the general public, and helping to reinterpret contemporary art.
Starting in 2016, the Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia has followed a new avenue that sees its spaces host great contemporary art in a programme drawn up by the Fondation Louis Vuitton, without, however, ceasing at the same time to support important restoration works and projects dear to the city of Venice; in 2016, these included the restoration of the eighteenth-century wooden models for the projects of a large Venetian palace, of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni and of Villa Pisani in Strà, and, more recently, support for the celebrations to celebrate the anniversary of Tintoretto’s birth.