Projects
The aim underlying Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia’s programme is to promote an extensive cultural project with the patrimony it boasts in all its collections throughout the territory of the Metropolitan City, lagoon and mainland.
Fondazione MUVE was first established in 2016 in the Centro Culturale Candiani with its first contemporary art laboratory, which was then followed by an extensive exhibition programme.
After ten years, in 2026, the new Contemporary Art Museum of Venice comes to life: MUVEC – Casa delle Contemporaneità, which finds its permanent home in the renovated spaces of the Centro, following a major architectural and functional intervention.
In parallel, in 2024, the Foundation returned the Emeroteca dell’Arte to the city at the former municipal Emeroteca building, after an extensive restoration and redevelopment project.
Since 2017, MUVE has also been present at Forte Marghera, with various exhibition activities currently taking place in the renovated Napoleonic Casermette.
In addition to exhibition activities, the Foundation carries out conservation, enhancement, and promotion of the museum heritage at the multifunctional Vega.stock space.
MUVEC - Casa delle Contemporaneità
The new Museum of Contemporary Art – Casa delle Contemporaneità opens in 2026 inside the Candiani Cultural Centre and introduces an independent route giving access to the exhibition spaces managed by MUVE.
The Casa delle Contemporaneità is organised with a permanent museum on the second floor, where visitors arrive, and a temporary exhibition space on the third floor.
The permanent collection presents art from 1948 onwards and invites visitors to reflect on what “contemporary” means today; the display does not follow a strictly chronological order, but is structured around three key themes – Reconstruction, Construction and Deconstruction.
A museum open all year round, with a permanent collection and activities for schools, adults and special‑needs audiences, it is closely connected with Fondazione Musei Civici’s other venues in Mestre: the Emeroteca dell’Arte, the Casermette in Forte Marghera and the future Palaplip.
Emeroteca dell’Arte
From 2024, following major redevelopment and restoration work, the Emeroteca dell’Arte, the formerly home to the city’s Emeroteca – its newspaper library – owned by the City of Venice, located in the centre of Mestre in Via Poerio, has been transformed into a lively space for cultural aggregation. It is dedicated to the production and sharing of the arts, thus strengthening the link with the community and the city’s cultural heritage.
The ground floor and mezzanine house a Literary Café, a stimulating environment for literature and art lovers, with an area dedicated to a programme of events, meetings, presentations and workshops run by the Fondazione Musei Civici.
Thirteen artists-in-residence are hosted annually on the first and second floors, with the aim of promoting artistic production in the centre of Mestre. This project is part of the initiatives aimed at making the city a point of reference for the contemporary Venetian scene.
Casermette, Forte Marghera
At the Casermette in Forte Marghera Fondazione MUVE’s activities go beyond the usual museum areas.
In this particular context the exhibitions have been designed to stimulate the enjoyment and knowledge of art and culture in a climate of community and social togetherness, in particular amongst the younger generation.
In these marvellous vast historic spaces that are immersed in nature, the exhibition projects leave behind the classic type of museum visit and the chronological and philological ties that art history often demands.
Vega.stock
At VEGA – Parco Tecnologico Scientifico di Venezia, Fondazione MUVE has developed the Vega.stock project: a space dedicated to storing works from the Venice Civic Museums collections. This complex is located inside the Vega Park scientific hub, a short distance from the Biennale Historical Archives and the Department of Chemistry, Physical Chemistry and Environmental Sciences laboratory of the MM.FF.NN. Faculty at Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia.
Due to the availability of these fully air-conditioned rooms, where humidity and temperature control are ensured by remotely controlled, programmable systems, many artworks not on public display can now benefit from optimum conservation conditions.
Vega.stock is a constantly changing, active repository, which undertakes the restoration and maintenance of the artworks stored there, including cleaning, photography and conservation work, all conducted to the highest international museum standards.
Exhibitions held from 2016 to 2026
From 2016 to 2026, at the Centro Culturale Candiani, the Foundation has developed a series of exhibition projects that not only bring the Civic Museums’ collections into dialogue with one another, but also with collections from other institutions, studying and comparing different centuries and movements, techniques and interpretations that can at times be similar and at others the total opposite, but always full of meaning: a dialogue, hence that characterises all the projects housed in this venue.
- 14 December 2016 – 5 March 2017
AROUND KLIMT. Giuditta, heroism and seduction - 14 April – 2 July 2017
ATTORNO A TIZIANO. L’annuncio e la luce verso il Contemporaneo. Garofalo,Canova, Fontana, Flavin - 15 July – 5 November 2017
ABOUT POP ART IN THE SONNABEND COLLECTION. From Johns and Rauschenberg to Warhol and Lichtenstein and to Koons - 16 December 2017 – 27 May 2018
AROUND GLASS and its reflection in painting - 18 December 2018 – 24 March 2019
VENICE AND SAINT PETERSBURG. Artists, Princes and Merchants - 15 June 2019 – 30 June 2022
FISHING IN THE VENETIAN LAGOON. The historical Ninni-Marella’s models collection - 10 September 2022 – 10 April 2023
KANDINSKY AND THE AVANT-GARDES. Point and line to plane - 30 September 2023 – 13 February 2024
CHAGALL. The Colour of the Dreams - 28 September 2024 – 4 March 2025
MATISSE AND THE LIGHT OF THE MEDITERRANEAN - 30 October 2026 – 1 March 2026
MUNCH. The Expressionist Revolution
