The Peggy Guggenheim Collection has lost millions and is asking for help with a fundraiser

For nearly three months, from March 8 to June 1, 2020, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice found itself forced to close its doors to its public, facing a 13-week-long blackout that made its holdings physically inaccessible for the first time in 40 years. Since 1980, in fact, when Palazzo Venier dei Leoni officially opened its doors as a museum, a cross-section of 20th-century art history, represented by the great masterpieces of the protagonists of 20th-century art, has become public and open to visitors.

After 86 days of closure, the museum faced a heavy loss in economic terms (2 million euros: these are the lost earnings), ticketing and Museum Shop being the main sources of revenue for a nonprofit nonprofit foundation such as the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, which receives no state funds. The consequence of this has been a gradual return to business as usual, albeit only with the reopening of only the permanent collection, with restricted admissions, thus greatly reduced, and only on weekends in June, to which Fridays were added in July.

The exhibition programming planned for the months to come has therefore been revised: the museum’s wish is to be able to return to guarantee reopening 6 days a week, free admission for children up to 10 years of age, and free educational services and activities for its visitors, such as Art Talks, Public Programs, Kids Day, and activities aimed at the public of the 4th age, the blind, and schools of all levels in the Veneto region.

That is why now the Peggy Guggenheim Collection is launching an extraordinary fundraising campaign, Together for the PGC to ensure that this immense artistic heritage, as well as its educational and transformative power, which lives on through the countless programs and activities, will remain intact, public and open to all in the future. Families, students, teachers, art lovers, millennials, the young, the not-so-young, the differently abled: to this large and devoted community of supporters, which until now has itself been a founding part of the museum’s history, the Collection is appealing for a donation. Their contribution is now crucial to writing a new page in the history of the Collection and of Venice.

“Living,” emphasizes the Collection’s director, Karole P.B. Vail, along with the entire staff, “means carrying out our mission: to preserve and conserve Peggy Guggenheim’s legacy by educating on the value of the artistic process as a tool for personal growth and the development of critical thinking. We consider art a primary good and as such we believe it should be accessible to all. Therefore, for you and for future generations we wish to be able to open the museum 6 days a week, to continue to guarantee the educational projects, which are totally free of charge, the programming of temporary exhibitions, and the publication of catalogs. In other words, the life of the museum.”

“We are trying hard,” he concludes. “We can’t take a step back, we want to move forward with you to ensure the quality, professionalism and integrity that has always been the hallmark of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.” For information and to donate just go to this link.

Pictured: the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Photo by Matteo De Fina

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection has lost millions and is asking for help with a fundraiser

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