Starting from the layered history of the eighteenth-century Ca’ Corner della Regina palace, home of the Monte di Pietà of Venice from 1834 to 1969 and permanent space of the Prada Foundation since 2011, Christoph Büchel, a Swiss artist known for his conceptual projects and his large installations , has built a complex network of spatial, economic and cultural references with the “Monte di Pietà” exhibition, open to the public from 20 April to 24 November 2024 in conjunction with the Biennale Arte.
Büchel’s project is an in-depth investigation of the concept of debt as the root of human society and the primary vehicle through which political and cultural power is exercised. Historically a crossroads of commercial and artistic mixes and exchanges, Venice is the ideal context for exploring the relationships between these complex themes and the profound dynamics of contemporary society.
“Monte di Pietà” develops as an immersive installation that is articulated in the Ca’ Corner building and, in particular, in the ground floor, mezzanine and first noble floor. The project consists of a failing pawnshop based on the original appearance of the Monte di Pietà in Venice. In this context, the work “The Diamond Maker” (2020) is exhibited, which Christoph Büchel conceived as a suitcase containing diamonds made in the laboratory. Diamonds are the result of a physical and symbolic process of destruction and transformation of the entire corpus of works in the artist’s possession, including those created during his childhood and youth as well as those not yet created. They were produced by Algordanza AG, a global company founded in Switzerland in 2004 that makes memory diamonds.
“Monte di Pietà” incorporates new productions, references to installations previously created by Büchel, a heterogeneous selection of objects, historical and contemporary works of art and documents related to the history of ownership, credit and finance, the development of collections and archives, to the creation and meaning of real or artificial wealth.
The preview of the project took place in the presence of Miuccia Prada, president and director of the Foundation. The artists Christoph Büchel, Sophia Al-Maria, Hans Berg, Sophie Calle, Maurizio Cattelan, Jamie Diamond, Michael Elmgreen, Cao Fei, Carsten Höller, Anne Imhof, Joep van Lieshout, Hito Steyerl and Francesco Vezzoli took part in the event; the architects and designers Alejandro Aravena, Irma Boom, Carlo Ratti and Michael Rock; the curators Francesco Bonami, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Maya El Khalil, Alison M. Gingeras, Mark Godfrey, Udo Kittelmann, Sook-Kyung Lee and Kathleen Soriano; the presidents and directors of museums and cultural institutions Maria Balshaw (Tate Gallery), Philippe Bischof (Pro Helvetia), Nicholas Cullinan (British Museum), Cécile Debray (Musée national Picasso), Ann Demeester (Kunsthaus Zurich), Chris Dercon (Fondation Cartier ), Elvira Dyangani Ose (MACBA Barcelona), Laurence des Cars (Musée du Louvre), Elena Filipovic (Kunstmuseum Basel), Maya Hoffmann (LUMA Foundation), Michael Govan (LACMA), Donatien Grau (Musée du Louvre), Sam Keller ( Fondation Beyeler), Jörg Heiser (Institute of the Arts in Context), Tristram Hunt (Victoria and Albert Museum), Francesco Manacorda (Castello di Rivoli), Gianfranco Maraniello (Polo Museale del Moderno e Contemporaneo, Milan), Humberto Moro (Dia Art Foundation), Andrew Perchuk (Getty Research Institute), Susanne Pfeffer (Museum MMK Frankfurt), Andrea Viliani (Museo delle Civiltà, Rome), Mariët Westermann (Guggenheim Museum) and Rein Wolfs (Stedelijk Museum); personalities from the world of art and culture such as Sheikha Al-Mayassa, Sandra Brant, Roberto Cicutto, Lauren Cornell, Vincenzo De Bellis, Clément Delépine, Wendy Fisher, Henry R. and Marie-Josée Kravis, Gió Marconi, Almine Rech, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Raf Simons, Marc Spiegler and Paolo Zannoni.