Bvlgari, born in Rome in 1884, has always understood that beauty is not confined to a vitrine. This year, the Maison makes its most expansive statement yet in that belief, inaugurating its role as Exclusive Partner of the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia – a commitment that runs through 2030 and spans two distinct artistic programmes unfolding across the city.
At the Bvlgari Pavilion within the Giardini della Biennale, Canadian artist Lotus L. Kang presents The Face of Desire Is Loss, an installation built around the logic of change rather than permanence. Unfixed photographic film hangs from steel joists, left continuously sensitive to the light and humidity of the pavilion so that it develops in real time over the course of the exhibition. Sculptural works rendered from tatami mats, cast objects and other mutable materials surround it, while lengths of 35mm celluloid seal the windows, breaking the film’s duration into shifting planes of colour and light. Kang describes the work as an assemblage that refuses fixity, one in which the body exists in a state of transmutation toward exhaustion, death and rebirth.
The second initiative belongs to Fondazione Bvlgari, which makes its exhibition debut at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana – a venue defined by the preservation and transmission of knowledge. Two female Italian artists occupy its spaces: Monia Ben Hamouda, winner of the biennial prize established by Bvlgari in collaboration with MAXXI in 2017, fills the Vestibule with Fragments of Fire Worship, while Lara Favaretto, recipient of the Prize for Young Italian Art 2004–2005 and a Biennale veteran across three editions, brings the final chapter of Momentary Monument – The Library to the Salone Sansovino. Beyond Venice, Ben Hamouda’s sculpture Ya’aburnee (Untranslated Fragment I and II), carved from Tunisian thela stone, is installed in the garden of Bvlgari Hotel Milano for the duration of the Biennale Arte 2026.
CEO Jean-Christophe Babin frames the partnership not as sponsorship but as creative infrastructure: “As Exclusive Partner, we are proud to contribute to the creation of a dynamic and inspiring environment in which visitors, artists and curators can come together, engage in dialogue, experiment freely, and collectively imagine and shape the culture of the future.”
From Rome to Venice to Milan, a jeweller continues to prove that its most enduring material has always been art itself.
