Today Palazzo Grassi, tomorrow …

In the closing days of April, it was announced that Francois Pinault, one of France's wealthiest citizens and that nation's preeminent collector of contemporary art, would purchase a controlling interest in Palazzo Grassi, the posh exhibition venue, from the city of Venice. Word of the acquisition unleashed a torrent of editorializing and nervous speculation on both sides of the French-Italian border. What did the deal portend for the showplace on the Grand Canal, and what would become of Pinault's own plan--mired in bureaucratic delays almost since its unveiling in 2000--to open his collection to the public in a Tadao Ando-designed museum on an island in the Seine some three miles southwest of downtown Paris?

Following the announcement, sources close to Pinault moved to quell the rumor that the Palazzo Grassi purchase amounted to a death knell for the Pinault Foundation Museum on Ile Seguin. The billionaire's vast holdings of 2,500 works, it was reiterated, would easily fill two museums. But a stunning May 9 statement published by Le Monde and authored by Pinault himself put an end to doubt: the collector was abandoning Ile Seguin.

Pinault is the chairman and principal owner of PPR (Pinault-Printemps-Redoute), whose holdings include international luxury brands, the Fnac and Le Printemps retail chains, and Christie's auction house. In his statement, the disheartened billionaire laments that the Ando building--once projected for 2005--could not possibly open its doors before 2009-10. Contrasting the single life span of an entrepreneur (he is now 69) with the longevity of bureaucracies, Pinault describes Palazzo Grassi as a means of realizing his dream without further delay. He reveals his intention to launch a program of exhibitions of 20th-century and contemporary art by year's end. And, in the biggest bombshell, Pinault calls Venice the first step in a plan to establish venues in a network of European cities (none named) for the circulation of artworks and ideas.

Prior to Pinault's disclosures, the Palazzo Grassi deal had been a big enough bombshell on its own. Artemis SA, Pinault's holding company, is acquiring an 80-percent stake in the aristocratic-residence-turned-kunsthalle for $37 million in a 99-year deal. The remaining 20 percent remains in municipal hands; Venice will participate proportionally in future profits, but its risk is limited to a maximum 5 percent of losses. Pinault is further obligated to rehabilitate, for additional gallery space, a small theater that stands across a narrow alley from the palazzo. The agreement stipulates that a five-member board, with one seat reserved for a city representative, will determine future programming. Venice had done little more than play a custodial role since acquiring a controlling share in Palazzo Grassi from the ailing Fiat corporation following the death in 2003 of the company's honorary chairman, Gianni Agnelli. It was Agnelli, a formidable collector in his own right, who had spearheaded Fiat's 1984 acquisition and restoration of the 18th-century structure.

Pinault's offer was officially accepted with undisguised resignation by the newly reelected Massimo Cacciari, who had been returned to the mayor's office (where he served from 1993-2000) in local elections in mid-April. Cacciari's predecessor, Paolo Costa, had brokered the deal. Observers could be forgiven for wondering if the fix had been in for Pinault pretty much from the start, despite the fact that a second wealthy collector, the Genoese industrialist Angelo Guido Terruzzi, had been invited to tender an offer. Early last February, following months of discussion, then-mayor Costa had announced the forthcoming appointment of Jean-Jacques Aillagon to serve as artistic director of Palazzo Grassi. At the time, Aillagon, the former director of the Centre Pompidou and France's minister of culture and communication until March 2004, was serving as Pinault's adviser on the Ile Seguin project. And it was Aillagon who had traveled to Berlin and Lille in recent months, giving rise to the first wave of speculation that Pinault was prepared to take his collection outside of Paris.

According to Le Monde, during Aillagon's ministry (2002-04), a public-private venture between France's national museums and Pinault had sought, unsuccessfully, to buy Palazzo Grassi from Fiat. In early April, when Aillagon was appointed director of the government's francophone international network, TV5, he said he would step down as Pinault's adviser but did not plan to relinquish what he called his "intellectual mission" at Palazzo Grassi. Though the Pinault-Venice agreement does not name Aillagon as the artistic director, there seems to be an understanding that he will stay on in that capacity for the time being. And this has some bearing on the question of long-term programming.

Under the deep-pocketed and generally arm's-length patronage of Fiat, Palazzo Grassi hosted 26 shows that fulfilled a lofty three-point mission to illuminate art-historical themes, examine individual artists (the final presentation had been devoted to Salvador Dali) and mount archeological exhibitions that blended pioneering scholarly research with blockbuster appeal. On precisely this issue, Cacciari claimed one personal victory: an amendment to the agreement that underscored the city's role and interest in seeing that artistic programming at Palazzo Grassi remains comparably broad.