If it is true, as Paul Valery said, that ‘the future cannot be predicted, it must be prepared,’ then at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia we are preparing for the future by building on our heritage. Not only to preserve it, but to keep it alive, like a bow ready to shoot. On 5 May 2025, the Fondazione Querini Stampalia was not only reborn: it underwent a genetic mutation. It has taken its founder at his word and relaunched itself. Giovanni Querini, after all, was not just a guardian of the past. He was a visionary, an outsider, a curious and determined man who donated all his possessions to transform his home into a place for those who seek, study, listen and discuss, and to ensure that a system of relationships and respect could be created, one that viewed knowledge combined with wisdom as the only tools for building the world.
The journey towards 5 May, the anniversary of Giovanni Querini's birth, began with a poster campaign, the Wonder Posters: iconic phrases in Venetian dialect that, with irony and complicity, began to dialogue with the city, using typical idiomatic expressions suggesting that the Fondazione was at work and preparing to inaugurate a new season. We used the same language and tone on social media, where aesthetics and content coincided to mark and signal our intentions, change and transformation. We projected our presence into the asymmetrical and off-centre space of one of Venice's most beautiful squares, Santa Maria Formosa, with sculptures by Davide Rivalta, two lions and two lionesses drawing glances and attention. Marti Guixé's installation with its social seating invites us to linger before continuing our journey, entering the Fondazione through a renovated ground floor – with the already legendary Libreria Giovanni extending along the canal, and the Caffè Mariona overlooking the Scarpa garden and the Mazzariol courtyard, where you can sit on Edra chairs and enjoy a relaxing and restorative moment.
The exhibition dedicated to John Baldessari, with its emblematic title, No Stone Unturned, is a declaration of intent: to experiment, to xplore with irony and lightness, but with a conscious critical sense and without giving up. To practise a kind of healthy disobedience and rebellion against everything that seems taken for granted: “I will not make any more boring art,” wrote Baldessari, and we will try never to do anything boring: we will dare, we will take risks, we will focus on every possible alternative to make a difference and fuel wonder, to be a ‘wonder booster’. The Fondazione’s collection boasts not only a rich library with an amazing collection of antique books, but also furnishings and paintings of great value, and several masterpieces, including Giovanni Bellini's Presentation at the Temple. It is a masterpiece but not a relic, a work of refined beauty, housed in a shell, a contemporary cocoon that brings the ephemeral architecture of Venetian tradition to the fore. This gesture too was born out of wonder, not as an aesthetic of enchantment but as a critical stance that attempts to bring out new perspectives.
This is why we are also interested in new technologies, because of our inclination for experimentation that is part of the identity of the Fondazione, which believes that one should not chase after, and perhaps not even necessarily anticipate, but rather be of one's own time, with attention and without too many reassurances. Querini is a space for invention, a laboratory, a place where culture is a performative act, a critical infrastructure and a lever for rethinking reality. Count Giovanni Querini knew this very well. He did not create a mausoleum, but an open institution, with a library that is always accessible, art in dialogue with time. His gesture was both generous and strategic: to place knowledge in the hands of the future. Wonder is the opposite of cynicism. It is the beginning of every thought and every hope, which is why at the beginning of your journey within the Querini do please say “ciao” to Giovanni who welcomes you at the entrance; his marble bust represents our guardian deity and your host. We look forward to seeing you.