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A great lover of art, and one of the largest collectors of contemporary art in the world, François Pinault has decided to share his passion with the greatest number of people possible. In May 2005, he acquired the prestigious Palazzo Grassi in Venice, where he presented a part of his collection during three exhibitions: Where Are We Going?, Post-Pop, and Sequence 1. In June 2007 François Pinault was selected by the City of Venice to undertake the transformation of Punta della Dogana into a new center for contemporary art, where his collection will be on permanent display. Renovated by Tadao Ando, Punta della Dogana opened the 6th of June 2009. Solicited by many municipalities, public and private institutions, François Pinault also presents a part of his collection outside of Venice, for instance, the exhibition Passage du Temps at the Tri Postal in Lille (2007), Un certain Etat du Monde? at the Melnikov Garage in Moscow (2009) and Qui a peur des artistes? at Dinard in Brittany (2009).

The Collection is located in two areas. The Monumental Complex, The Exhibition Centre and Teatro Verde are located on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore. The Palazzo Cini Gallery is located of the Island at San Vio, Dorsoduro, 864. Venice, Italy 30123 (+39 041 - 521 0755)

The Giorgio Cini Foundation is a non-profit cultural institution based in Venice, Italy. It was constituted by Vittorio Cini, in memory of his son Giorgio, with the aim of restoring the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore (devastated after 100 years of military occupation) and of creating an international cultural centre that would re-integrate the Island into the life of Venice. «The Giorgio Cini Foundation’s mission is to promote the redevelopment of the monumental complex on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore and encourage the creation and development of educational, social, cultural and artistic institutions in its surrounding territory.» The creation of the Foundation was one of the most considerable private initiatives of the 20th century. The im-portance of this undertaking was borne out by the initial investment committed to rehabilitate the Island and by the many events the Foundation has promoted or hosted since. It is further substanstiated by the cultural patrimony conserved on the Island and, since 1984, at the Gallery of Palazzo Cini at San Vio. Alongside the Foundation’s commitment to its own research and the conferences and seminars growing out of this work, the Island welcomes events sponsored by distinguished cultural and scientific organisations. It has even been the site of major international summits (inprimis the G7 in 1980 and 1987). The role of the Giorgio Cini Foundation is attested by the many highly esteemed intellectuals, artists, politicians and economists who have been involved in its programme, and by the recollections of scholars and guests who have spent time on the Island.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is among the most important museums in Italy for European and American art of the 20th century. It is located in Peggy Guggenheim's former home, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice. The museum presents Peggy Guggenheim's personal collection, masterpieces from the Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, the Gianni Mattioli Collection, the Nasher Sculpture Garden, as well as temporary exhibitions. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is owned and operated by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, which also operates the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and which is a partner of the Basque Regional Government for the programming of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. In 1980, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection opened for the first time under the management of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, to which Peggy Guggenheim had given her palazzo and collection during her lifetime.

Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli founded the Fondazione Prada in 1993, with the artistic direction of Germano Celant beginning in 1995. The Fondazione is a non-profit organization, generated by a shared passion for contemporary art. The flexible structure of the Fondazione Prada is developing within the framework of a variety of subjects and is opening up to themes that are inherent to different areas of research, ranging from art to architecture, philosophy to science, design to cinema. The Fondazione Prada opened on May 31, 2011, its new exhibition space in Venice, the Ca’ Corner della Regina, a historic palazzo on the Grand Canal.

The Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) led by Rem Koolhaas has been commissioned to design the intervention and transformation of an early 20th -century industrial site south of Milan to create new spaces for the Fondazione Prada. In connection to the realisation of the new spaces in Largo Isarco, the Fondazione Prada is planning to broaden its cultural perspective. The enriched course of research will be expressed through the expansion of the projects realised in a dialogue with artists, and in future collaborations with leading international museums, institutes for historical, modern and contemporary art, architecture and design, as well as through a series of partnerships for temporary exhibitions.

Once owned by the Pesaro family, this large Gothic palazzo in Campo San Beneto, was transformed by Mariano Fortuny into his own atelier of photography, stage-design, textile-design and painting. The building retains the rooms and structures created by Fortuny, together with tapestries and collections. The working environment of Mariano Fortuny is represented through precious wall-hangings, paintings, and the famous lamps – all objects that testify to the artist’s inspiration and still give count of his eclectic work and of his presence on the intellectual and artistic scene at the turn of the 19th century. The Fortuny Museum was donated to the city in 1956 by Henriette, Mariano’s widow. The collections within the museum comprise an extensive number of pieces and materials which reflect the various fields investigated in the artist’s work. These are organised under certain specific headings: painting, light, photography, textiles and grand garments. This Museum combines ‘full’ spaces – for example, the first floor salone overflowing with paintings, fabrics and Fortuny’s famous lamps – with more open spaces: on the second floor, walls and windows, lighting and space recount the history of the palazzo and the atelier it housed. From here one can see into the wonderfully intact library, a kaleidoscopic ‘work in progress’ that brings together pieces by Fortuny and by contemporary artists from very different backgrounds. The museum is open only during the temporary exhibitions.

The Lyon Housemuseum is a unique combination of private residence and private art museum, brought together in a single, purpose designed building. Designed by architect and collector Corbett Lyon, the Housemuseum builds on a long lineage of private art collections housed and displayed in residential settings including Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, New York’s Frick Collection, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and London's Wallace Collection. Lyon coined the term 'housemuseum' to describe this newly created hybrid architectural type. The Housemuseum displays selected works from the Lyon Collection of contemporary art. The Collection includes paintings, sculpture, video work and installations by many of Australia's leading contemporary artists. The Lyon Collection is one of the largest and most significant collections of its type in the country, offering insights into Australian contemporary art practice from the early 1990s through to the present.

Sabancı University's Sakıp Sabancı Museum is located in Emirgan, at one of Istanbul's oldest settlements on the Bosphorus. In 1927 Prince Mehmed Ali Hasan of the Hidiv family of Egypt commissioned the Italian architect Edouard De Nari to build the villa, now the museum's main building, and it was used as a summer house for many years by various members of the Hidiv family; for a short time it also served as the Montenegran Embassy.
After the mansion was purchased in 1950 by industrialist Hacı Ömer Sabancı from Prince Iffet, a member of the Hidiv family, it came to be known as "Atlı Köşk", The Horse Mansion, because of the statue of a horse (purchased in the same year) that was installed in the garden; the statue is the 1864 work of the French sculptor Louis Doumas.
A second horse sculpture on the grounds of Atlı Köşk is the cast of one of the four horses taken from Sultanahmet square in Istanbul when it was looted by Crusaders during the fourth Crusade in 1204 and removed to the Basilica of San Marco in Venice.
After the death of Hacı Ömer Sabancı in 1966 Atlı Köşk began to be used permanently as a home by Sakıp Sabancı, the eldest of the family, and for many years housed Sakıp Sabancı's rich collection of calligraphy and paintings. In 1998, together with its collection and furnishings, the mansion was allocated to Sabancı University to be transformed into a museum.
With the annex of a modern gallery, the exhibition areas of the museum opened to visitors in 2002; with a further extension of the layout in 2005, the technical level of the museum reached international standards.
Today Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum presents a versatile museological environment with its rich permanent collection, the comprehensive temporary exhibitions that it hosts, its conservation units, model educational programs and the various concerts, conferences and seminars held there.

The privately owned Faurschou Foundation began in Copenhagen—where it is still headquartered—but now also has permanent exhibition spaces in Beijing (798) and, more recently, New York (Greenpoint, Brooklyn), as well as a reoccurring temporary space in Venice. The Foundation’s international exhibition programme, which consists of both thematic presentations and solo exhibitions, draws considerably from the Foundation’s sizeable and growing art collection, but also includes special commissions produced in collaboration with artists, galleries, and other institutions. Luise and Jens Faurschou are now opening a new public exhibition space in the North Harbour district of Copenhagen - in addition to their space in Beijing in the dynamic 798 Art District - a space they have run since 2007. At these locations they set up exhibitions in collaboration with some of the best contemporary artists, curators, museums and galleries all over the world.