From 13 December 2025, a spectacular ice installation will welcome visitors to Palazzo Diedo, home to Berggruen Arts & Culture in Venice. Conceived by Olaf Nicolai as an open and accessible space, the work finds a new interpretation and temporary home in the ballroom of the 18th-century building

Reopened to the public in 2024 after two years of restoration and now the Venetian headquarters of Berggruen Arts & Culture, Palazzo Diedo strengthens its dialogue with contemporary art thanks to the new intervention by renowned German artist Olaf Nicolai, creator of the incredible ice rink that will be presented on 13 December 2025 in the frescoed ballroom on the first floor of the 18th-century building.
Until 22 February 2026, the work – entitled Eisfeld II, literally “ice field”, and consisting of a 100-square-metre rink accessible to visitors – will gradually cool down, accompanied by the original soundtrack by the Berlin band To Rococo Rot, played through six loudspeakers arranged around the rink.
Twenty-four years after Eisfeld was presented at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, this new interpretation of the work responds to the architecture of Palazzo Diedo, in the wake of the dialectic between pleasure and survival evoked by Nicolai’s two light boxes – ENJOY/SURVIVE I & II – located at either end of the rink. An invitation to reflect on the balance between the two concepts and thus transform the experience of skating into a kind of sensory reflection.
Nicolai – who has always been committed to research that moves away from the logic of traditional representation and the market – is therefore the new guest of Palazzo Diedo, which, since its inaugural exhibition JANUS, has hosted site-specific and permanent installations by artists like Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda, Urs Fischer, Piero Golia, Carsten Höller, Ibrahim Mahama, Mariko Mori, Sterling Ruby, Jim Shaw, Hiroshi Sugimoto, AYA TAKANO, Lee Ufan and Liu Wei.

INFO
Olaf Nicolai, Eisfeld II
13 December 2025 ‒ 22 February 2026
PALAZZO DIEDO
Cannaregio 2386, Venice
https://berggruenarts.org/

Cover photo: Olaf Nicolai. Enjoy/Survive, 2001. Courtesy Galerie EIGEN, Art Leipzig, Berlin. Photo by Uwe Walter