Punta della Dogana

Fortuna, the weathervane atop Punta della Dogana, swung Venice’s way when bureaucratic hassles in Paris convinced billionaire art collector François Pinault to create a gallery extension at the Palazzo Grassi and transfer his world-class collection to the Punta della Dogana. At the ship’s-prow end of Dorsoduro, Venice’s historic 17th-century customs house was relaunched in 2009 after a three-year reinvention by architect Tadao Ando as Venice’s splashiest contemporary art space. The inaugural show traced the creative processes of Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman and other contemporary art stars from rough drafts to end products, installed in converted warehouses flooded with light through polished- concrete channels and water gates – an astute homage to Carlo Scarpa’s designs for Palazzo Querini Stampalia and the Biennale.