The Venice Biennale

• Enjoy contemporary art in historic locations, from palaces on the Grand Canal to the medieval Arsenale

• Survey major retrospectives of leading modern and contemporary artists at the Palazzo Grassi and on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore

• Appreciate a carefully-curated daily program of exhibitions throughout Venice, including a full day in both the Giardini and the Arsenale, each housing over 20 exhibitions

• Take a day trip to Arte Sella, a magnificent contemporary sculpture park nestled in the Italian Alps

• Discover the modern art collections of Venice and their spectacular settings, from the Prada Foundation in its baroque palace to the Japanese minimalism of the Punta della Dogana

SATURDAY 13 JUNE – ARRIVAL (welcome drinks)
The tour begins this afternoon when we gather at our hotel for an orientation stroll of the local area and to visit an exhibition in the San Marco district. After our visit, we enjoy welcome drinks and there is an introductory talk about the Biennale and its history by your tour leaders. First of eight nights in Venice.

SUNDAY 14 JUNE – THE GIARDINI BIENNALE (B, D)
In the early twentieth century, the Giardini – a Napoleonic greenspace built over the top of workers’ accommodation – became the Biennale’s permanent home. Today, its tree-lined avenues are punctuated by pavilions, designed for the display of art by architects such as Alvar Aalto and Carlo Scarpa. We begin the day at the Central Pavilion, whose exhibition In Minor Keys includes work by over 100 artists from around the world, including Khaled Sabsabi, who represents Australia this year. The exhibition, conceptualised by the late Cameroonian-Swiss curator, Koyo Kouoh, focuses on reconnecting us with the visual, meditative, emotional and sensory experience of art. In this regard, the exhibition distinguishes itself from recent biennales that have focussed on works that offer broad commentary on social, political and environmental crises. After a break for lunch, we visit a selection of the Giardini’s national pavilions, including those of Australia, the USA, France, Great Britain and Japan. In the evening, we enjoy dinner together at a local restaurant.

MONDAY 15 JUNE – SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE (B)
In the morning, we visit the Fortuny Museum, which in addition to its collection of Fortuny fabrics, lamps and parts of stage sets, is hosting an exhibition of work by Austrian sculptor Erwin Wurm, whose pieces, such as his Fat Car series, are a playful, irreverent critique of western consumerism. We then visit the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, home to a Benedictine monastery for over 1,000 years, has become a key venue for exhibitions during the Venice Biennale. This morning our visit to the island includes the contemporary art on display in Palladio’s monumental Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore, where the Abbott has selected Barry X Ball to exhibit. Ball’s sculpture, which uses modern techniques and (often) luxurious, traditional materials, are typically inspired by great works from the European cannon. We then have time on the island to visit the Stanze del Vetro, and the exhibition staged in the abbey complex by the Fondazione Cini. After a break for lunch, we visit the Fortuny Museum, which integrates superb contemporary art exhibitions into its permanent collection of the house, textiles and designs of Mariano Fortuny. Evening at leisure

TUESDAY 16 JUNE – THE ARSENALE (B, aperitifs)
Over the past 40 years, the Venice Biennale has sought to better reflect the international nature of contemporary art by facilitating the representation of a greater number of non-European nations. Doing this meant offering up more exhibition space, and so Venice’s historic shipyards, empty for decades, were renovated to create 40,000 square metres of additional room. Today, we discover the Arsenale and its surrounds, exploring the second part of Kouoh’s thematic exhibition before visiting a selection of national pavilions, such as those of Argentina, Mexico and New Zealand. Returning to the hotel, we meet for drinks in the evening to discuss what we have seen today.

WEDNESDAY 17 JUNE – ART AROUND TOWN 1 (B, aperitifs)
As the Biennale has grown, it has helped transform Venice into a playground for modern and contemporary art, attracting numerous exhibitions of international standing each year. Today we visit some of these exhibitions in historic locations in Venice, including the Querini Stampalia Foundation, a sixteenth-century palace converted into a museum by Carlo Scarpa. This year, the museum displays the work of Ding Yi, a contemporary Chinese artist and pioneer of geometric abstraction in China, whose work should beautifully complement the modernist architecture of the museum interior. After a coffee break in the local campo (Venetian piazza), we visit the Museum of Palazzo Grimani, to see a retrospective Ghanese artist Amoako Boafo’s fabulous neo-expressionist portraiture. After a break for lunch, we visit the Olivetti showroom designed by Carlo Scarpa, and then visit a selection of smaller exhibitions in the San Marco neighbourhood, ending at the Palazzo Grassi. This eighteenth-century palace was transformed into an art gallery by FIAT magnate Gianni Agnelli, and was later sold to François Pinault. He uses it to host exhibitions of leading contemporary artists. This year, the museum hosts two major exhibitions: A retrospective of Kenya-born artist Michael Armitage, whose often monumental works blend East African mythology with Western art history, and explore themes of migration, sexuality and collective memory in the contemporary world. The second exhibition is Indian artist Amar Kanwar, whose multimedia works often explore ideas of reconciliation and resistance. After visiting the exhibition, we return to the hotel for a talk over aperitifs.

THURSDAY 18 JUNE – ART AROUND TOWN 2 (B)
The success of the Biennale has transformed Venice into a city of modern art, with multiple museums hosting excellent exhibitions during the event. Today we visit exhibitions across the city, starting with the Marina Abramović exhibition at the Accademia, whose ground floor was transformed in recent years into modern exhibition space. We then continue, after a break for morning tea, to the Punta Della Dogana a historic customs house converted into a contemporary art museum by Tadao Ando. Here there is an exhibition of work by Brazilian performance artist Paulo Nazareth, whose work includes a 15-year trek across the Americas and Africa, tracing the footsteps of his ancestors and their complex histories. Also at the Punta Della Dogana is Europe’s first large scale exhibition of Lorna Simpson, an American artist whose photography broke ground in the 1980s for the way it explored depictions of race and gender and their effect on self-identity. In the later afternoon, we visit the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, whose temporary exhibition is a reunification of numerous modernist masterpieces that Peggy had collected and sold through her London gallery in the 1930s. Returning to the hotel, the evening is at leisure.

FRIDAY 19 JUNE – ARTE SELLA AND THE TOMBA BRION (B, L)
Today we take a day trip outside of Venice by private coach. Our first stop is at the Tomba Brion, a monumental tomb designed by Carlo Scarpa for the Brion family in the late 1960s. The tomb complex fuses Scarpa’s elegant mid-century modernism with the rich symbolism of life and death, creating a peaceful place of meditation. We then continue into the Alps, where we enjoy an early lunch in a local restaurant before visiting Arte Sella. This little-known but outstanding contemporary sculpture park hosts large-scale works and land art that take full advantage of the tranquil alpine forests and mountain views. In the late afternoon, we return to Venice.

 SATURDAY 20 JUNE – CA’ PESARO AND THE PRADA FOUNDATION (B, D)
This morning we take a leisurely stroll through the Rialto markets to Ca’ Pesaro, Italy’s first public museum of modern art. The museum’s permanent collection grew from acquisitions during the first decades of the Biennale and places modern Italian art in its broader European and American contexts. After visiting the permanent collection, we visit the Jenny Saville exhibition hosted by the museum. Saville, one of the most influential contemporary portraitists, has long pushed the boundary between figurative and abstract work and her focus on the imperfectness of flesh, which developed while observing a plastic surgeon at work in the 1990s, reveal her sensitivity to the humanity of her subjects as well as a deep understanding of the ways the human body has been represented for millennia. After a break for an early lunch, we visit the Prada Foundation in the restored seventeenth-century Palazzo Corner della Regina. Here we see an exhibition of two very different American artists – Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince – both of whom appropriate and reinterpret images from a wide variety of popular visual culture, from social media posts to beat magazines, science fiction and televised news. The later afternoon is at leisure, before we meet for a farewell dinner this evening.

SUNDAY 21 JUNE - DEPARTURE (B)
The tour concludes after breakfast in the hotel this morning. While no departure transfers to Venice Marco Polo airport or Santa Lucia railway station are included in the tour price, our partners at Mary Rossi Travel will be pleased to assist with this and any other arrangements, including comprehensive travel insurance, to enable you to depart the tour. Contact us for further information.

Hotel Al Codega 4*, Venice, 8 nights

https://www.hotelalcodega.com

The four-star Hotel Al Codega is ideal for a long stay in Venice. It is a family-run establishment with just 21 rooms, meaning our group will occupy most of the rooms. Located in a hidden courtyard between St Mark’s and the Rialto, it is both quiet and central. Its breakfast, with pastries and other tempting delights still made in-house, is legendary.

A hotel of a similar category may be substituted.

• 8 nights accommodation in a centrally-located 4* hotel

• All breakfasts and 3 meals, plus aperitifs on 3 evenings

• Entry fees and tickets to sites mentioned in the final itinerary

• 9 days of transport on Venice’s public transport network

• Guided tours and entrance fees as mentioned in the final itinerary, and tipping

• Talks and expertise of an Australian tour leader throughout

• Services of an English-speaking Venetian tour manager throughout

A $1,500pp deposit is required at the time of booking to hold your place on tour.

We will invoice you for a second deposit of $2,000pp due on 13 February 2026.

We will invoice you for final payment for the tour, due on 30 March 2026.

When you book on one of tours, we ask you to accept our terms and conditions. You can read our terms and conditions here.