Victoria Miro gallery has announced that it will expand to Italy and plans to open a new space in Venice this May. Located in the San Marco district of the city, the gallery will be Miro’s fourth location—she currently has venues in Mayfair and Wharf Road, London.
Miro will takeover the seventeenth-century building from Galleria il Capricorno, which was founded by Bruna Aickelin in 1971. Known for showing twentieth-century artists such as Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Cy Twombly, and Robert Rauschenberg and, later, international contemporary artists, Galleria il Capricorno has also staged exhibitions by several artists represented by Miro including Hernan Bas, Verne Dawson, NS Harsha, Chantal Joffe, and Wangechi Mutu.
“Peggy Guggenheim, Ileana Sonnabend, Paula Cooper, Barbara Gladstone, Lisa Spellman, Sadie Coles, and Victoria Miro are some of the pioneering women gallerists whom I have had the great fortune to know and work with over many years,” Aickelin said. “Our lives are forever woven together, and I feel privileged to hand over the baton of my gallery to Victoria.”
Miro and Aickelin have been discussing how best to continue the legacy of Galleria il Capricorno for some time now. She said, “I am immensely grateful to her for entrusting us with this unique and beautiful gallery and look forward to extending the opportunity to our artists to respond to and show in this inspirational setting.”
Coinciding with the launch of the Fifty-Seventh Venice Biennale, the gallery will open on May 10 with an exhibition of works by Chris Ofili. Titled “Poolside Magic,” the exhibition comprises a suite of pastel, charcoal, and watercolor works on paper, which are being shown together for the first time.