The sign of the exhibition, put on the outside of the building on theGrand Canal, is a huge red dog-shaped puppet. It is by the American Jeff Koons, one of the most sensational “phenomena” of the international art market, together with the English Damien Hirst and the Italian Maurizio Cattelan, both present in the exhibition: Cattelan with his realistic "Him", a small Hitler on his knees, put in a corner as if praying, whilst Hirst occupies the whole noble hall with two of his dissected cows, his “pharmacy” of glass shelves full of thousands of multicoloured pills and the showcases containing the models of skeletons of prehistoric animals, which entitle the exhibition curated by the American Alison Gingeras: "Where are we going?",asking a question about the state of contemporary art, a question asked since a long time by many scholars (Jean Clair, Baudrillard, Meinric etc.) and which seems really scary and maybe without an answer. But the collection of contemporary art of the French tycoon François Pinault, a selection of which is now showed in the reopening of a Palazzo Grassi renewed by Tadao Ando, reveals a much bigger and more complex horizon, here sharply divided in two sections. And while at the ground floor – the floor of 1296 tiles by Carl Andre – and at the first floor are exhibited the most exasperated examples of the new expressive research in art, the second floor confirms, also through the “great painting”, the “minimalist” predilections of the bountiful French collectionist.

At the first floor there is a real “tractor” in aluminium by Charles Ray, the realistic and upsetting "Mechanical Pig" by Paul McCarthy, the impressive hall dedicated to the dissected dolls’pictures by Cindy Sherman, the imperative "I shop, therefore I am" by Barbara Kruger, the small hall reserved to the “banal” objects by Jeff Koons, just to mention some of the exhibited works. Obviously this show could not miss the Japanese Tahashi Muratami, presenting his work "Inochi", a sort of really disturbing alien puppet. And always at the first floor there is also a "classical" portrait of Mao by Andy Warhol and a big collage by the not so famous Polish artist Pjotr Uklanskj, a very beautiful bomb-shaped tree. On the second floor the situation is very different, there are many paintings, sometimes of high formal quality. As the two works by Richter, the extraordinary white cut (Attesa of 1966) by Lucio Fontana put near four "Achrome" by Pietro Manzoni. And again the stern hall dedicated to Agnes Martin with four paintings characterized by rarefied small signs, and another one as much important with Cy Twombly and ten paintings of a rare beauty.

The main hall is dedicated to one of the fathers of minimalism, the American Donald Judd, which occupies the space powerfully with his geometric shapes. Other halls host the coloured neons by Dan Flavin, the "whites" by Robert Ryman, and three extraordinary paintings of the beginning of the 50’s by Mark Rothko. It is useful to underline the great space given to the artists of the Italian Arte Povera with works by Pistoletto, Penone, Zorio, Anselmo, Fabro, Parmiggiani, Paolini, Kounellis and obviously Mario Merz, of whom is exposed the marvellous "Igloo" and the sequences of neon numbers by Fibonacci, ending with a Suzuki motorbike. The result is an exhibition at the same time nice and expected, which really asks the question of where contemporary art is going.