The Peggy Guggenheim Collection ends 2023 with over 378,000 visitors. As the exhibition dedicated to Marcel Duchamp continues through March 2024, we look forward to the major retrospective dedicated to Jean Cocteau.
Venice, January 10, 2024 – 2023 has been an excellent year for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The museum welcomed more than 378,000 visitors over 315 days, with an average of 1,200 daily admissions, which is very similar to 2022. In addition, 5,000 people attended inaugurations and private, institutional, and corporate events, and over 10,000 visitors participated in public programs, Kids Days, accessibility events, and tours related to the A scuola di Guggenheim program.
“We are fully satisfied with the results we achieved in 2023,” states director Karole P.B. Vail. “During a year which has seen Venice host the Architecture Biennale, as well as important art exhibitions organized by various institutions in the city, our museum has welcomed an excellent number of visitors that exceeded expectations. We are delighted that the media and the public appreciated the homage to Venetian ‘Spazialismo’ artist Edmondo Bacci, and that the exhibition devoted to Marcel Duchamp has been acclaimed by the press and proved extremely popular with our visitors. We are already working on this year’s exhibition program, which features two solo exhibitions dedicated to Jean Cocteau and Marina Apollonio, opening respectively in April and October. As usual, these will take place alongside a rich program of free collateral events, public programs, and accessibility and inclusion events for visitors of all ages as well as our members.”
While Marcel Duchamp and the Lure of the Copy, on view through March 18, has already registered almost 90,000 visitors since opening on October 14, we are already looking forward to the first major retrospective ever organized in Italy dedicated to Jean Cocteau, Jean Cocteau: The Juggler’s Revenge, opening on April 13. With over one hundred and fifty works, including drawings, graphics, jewelry, tapestries, documents, books, magazines, photographs, and documentaries, the exhibition highlights the eclecticism that always characterized the artist’s practice and the development of his unique and highly personal aesthetics. The exhibition also traces the tumultuous career of the French art world’s enfant terrible and documents his friendship with Peggy Guggenheim. It was, in fact, with an exhibition of Jean Cocteau’s drawings at her London gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, in 1938, that the U.S. patron began her own career in the arts. This is followed in the fall by an homage to Marina Apollonio, Marina Apollonio: Beyond the Circle, the first solo exhibition dedicated to one of the major figures of international Optical and Kinetic art, supported and collected by Guggenheim in the 1960s.