Also long awaited, and delayed due to the pandemic, is the opening of the whole of the Palazzo Reale in the Museo Correr, the rooms of which look out over the basin of San Marco and the Royal Gardens. Occupied by various state offices for many years, the rooms have undergone a refurbishment initiated and carried forward by the Fondazione and Venice City Council together with the Soprintendenza and the Demanio dello Stato and with the crucial backing of the Comité Français pour la Sauvegarde de Venise with its international donors. Following appropriate, extensive and carefully judged restoration work, a new itinerary will now take visitors on a spectacular journey through 19th-century history, exploring, in their original location, the furniture and exquisite craft artefacts that belonged to the Habsburgs and then the House of Savoy. This priceless legacy, which has never been on public display before, is now being returned to the citizens of Venice, an important moment that is part of a wider project to open new exhibition spaces that will form the Grande Correr in the Marciana area.

In 2022 the Palazzo Ducale, which lies at the heart of Venice’s museum network, will host three major temporary exhibitions. Venetia 1600. Nascite e rinascite, which is currently running in the Appartamento del Doge, has been extended until June. Visitors can trace the history and representation of the episodes of crisis and rebirth of a truly unique city which is now 1600 years old. This anniversary will also be marked, in April, by the opening of an eagerly awaited installation by Anselm Kiefer, one of the leading artists active today, in the Sala dello Scrutinio, that comes with a title from the writings of the Venetian philosopher Andrea Emo: “Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po' di luce” (“When they are burnt, these writings will finally provide some light ”) and works created for the palace. The exhibition is part of MUVE Contemporaneo. In September Dialoghi veneziani (Venetian dialogues ) opens in the Appartamento del Doge. This exceptional exhibition will comprise paintings by leading Venetian artists active between the fifteenth and eighteenth century that will arrive from the Pushkin State Museum in Moscow. The priceless body of artworks include masterpieces by Titian, Guardi, Bellotto and Canaletto. The history of the transmigration of Venetian art towards the collections of the Tzar and then of the Soviet empire, accompanied by exemplary works from the collections of Venetian museums, will offer new angles for comparison of forms and styles in the repertoire of the great Venetian painting of that period. It will be a unique occasion for scholars and the general public to admire paintings that have been in Russia for centuries.

MUVE Contemporaneo has as its centrepiece the Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the Palazzo Ducale, and as its natural locus the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna in Ca’ Pesaro, that for this edition it is presenting Afro 1950-1970 Dall'Italia all'America e ritorno/ From Italy to America and back, a tribute to one of the leading lights of Italian painting in the second half of the twentieth century and his twenty-year dealings with the American art world. In the same museum the English contemporary art scene is represented by a site-specific exhibition curated by Norman Rosenthal, Raqib Shaw. Palazzo della memoria, in which the artist of Indian origin translates visions of great Venetian painting into finely wrought surfaces. Es/Senza, held on the piani nobili of the Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo, Centro Studi di Storia del Tessuto, del Costume e del Profumo, will comprise works by a group of artists active on the international contemporary creative scene, who explore the “artistic” potential of the senses, in particular that of smell. In Museo del Vetro di Murano the exhibition Silicon Dioxide has been extended, featuring the sculptures of Tony Cragg, his historic assemblages and new works, offering the English artist's new curiosity for the various effects of the glass, in an installation enriched by a series of drawings, prints and watercolors. In Mestre, the Centro Culturale Candiani will host Punto, linea e superficie. Kandinsky e le avanguardie. Currently running at the Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea in Monfalcone, the exhibition is curated by the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna at Ca' Pesaro, which, drawing on its own collections, traces a path back through the contemporary period to the works of the father of abstraction.

The MUVE Mestre project is continuing and gathering momentum, with a new website and a consolidated programme, especially in the Centro Culturale Candiani and in Forte Marghera. The new year saw the opening of the third edition of Artefici del nostro tempo, a competition for young artists held by Venice City Council and organized by the Fondazione MUVE. In Spring the selected artists will be invited to showcase their work in the Venice Pavilion at the Biennale and in the Summer at the big group show at Forte Marghera. Autumn will see the return, as usual, of the Premio Mestre di Pittura, curated in part by MUVE; a group show of the selected artists will be held at the Centro Culturale Candiani, where La pesca in laguna, a fascinating exhibition about fishing in the lagoon, is running until the Spring.