Paolo De Grandis

Life and career

De Grandis was born in Venice. At the end of the 1970s he moved to the US where he developed an interest in organizing art exhibitions.

From 1984 to 1990 he directed the Academia Foundation where he organized his first exhibition Quartetto (1984) on the occasion of the 41st Venice Biennale at Scuola Grande S. Giovanni Evangelista. The exhibition included works by Joseph Beuys, Enzo Cucchi, Bruce Nauman and Luciano Fabro and was co-curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Alanna Heiss, and Kasper König.

In 1985 the Academia Foundation and FIAT USA financed the first exhibition of Arte Povera in New York at the P.S.1 titled The Knot. It was curated by Germano Celant with works by Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Gilberto Zorio. 10% of the earnings from tickets sale were donated to the UNESCO for the campaign of the Protection of Venice.

At the beginning of the 1990s De Grandis left the Academia Foundation and founded PDG Arte Communications. In 1995 he helped organising Art Taiwan, the first National Pavilion outside the gardens of the Venice Biennale.

In 1998 De Grandis developed OPEN, an international exhibition of sculptures and installations held during the Venice Film Festival Pierre Restany curated the first five editions Over the years Open has annually progressed and expanded its horizons by bringing artists from more than 75 countries.

Artists who exhibited at Open include Yoko Ono, Marisa Merz, Emilio Vedova, Richard Long, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Bernar Venet, Mimmo Rotella, Magdalena Abakanowicz, César, Arman, Beverly Pepper, Erik Dietman, Jean-Pierre Raynaud, Carl Andre, Keith Haring, Fabrizio Plessi, Julian Schnabel, Dennis Hopper, Feng Mengbo, Max Neuhaus, Chen Zhen, and Ju Ming".

De Grandis also gathered experience through numerous collaborations with Asia. He acted as commissioner of the Europe section for the Flag Art Festival in occasion of the 2002 FIFA WORLD CUP in Seoul, and two years later organized OPENASIA, a special edition curated with Chang Tsong-zung, Chinese contemporary art critic, presenting Asian artists as Yoko Ono, Ye Fang, Li Chen, Chen Zhen, Ye Hongxing, among others, and included projects as The Etruscans in the East curated by Philippe Daverio.

In 2006 De Grandis expanded to Morocco with the exhibition Fez Fez by Fabrizio Plessi, which inaugurated the Hassan Museum of Contemporary Art in Rabat, Directed by De Grandis and coordinated by Fathiya Tahiri, in the historic structure of Villa Andalucia. The project came by from the year before when De Grandis acted as curator of the 1st participation of the Pavilion of Morocco in the Venice Biennale during the 2005.

From the 2016, De Grandis collaborates with Claudio Crescentini and the MACRO Museum of Rome with the project From The Venice Biennale to MACRO . International Perspectives by presenting some of the exhibitions he has curated in the Venice Biennale as The Question of Beings by Yahon Chang from Taiwan.  

Other Exhibitions

Venice Biennale

He has worked iteratively in collaboration with the Venice Biennale as curator, commissioner or coordinator in the first participations of diverse countries. "De grandis cooperation with the Venice Biennale has increased. In the mid-90's he instituted pavilions outside the giardini area, allowing the participation of countries beyond those in the historical Biennale compound. Countries like Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Lettonia, Estonia, Macedonia, Grecia, Giamaica, Ucraina, Indonesia, Iran and Morocco turned to him and to his company Arte Communications to find suitable spaces all around Venice in which to exhibit".

First participations organized: