In 2006, for the first time the three major international exhibitions of contemporary visual arts and the leading art fair, started a dialogue which has developed over the past few months reaching a new partnership between the 52nd International Art Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia (www.labiennale.org), Art 38 Basel (www.artbasel.com), documenta 12 (www.documenta.de) and skulptur projekte münster 07 (www.skulptur-projekte.de).The new dialogue between the four partners has extended cooperation to several areas including exchange of information on their organisations and joint promotion. The most evident public manifestation of this initiative will be the Grand Tour 2007.Thanks to the Grand Tour 2007, the art traveller will be able to visit the three international art exhibitions, taking place every two, five and ten years in Venice, Kassel and Münster respectively and the yearly art fair in Basel which will all be opening one after another in June 2007, as a result of a once-in-ten year coincidence.The joint website www.grandtour2007.com -which alludes to the educational voyages across Italy undertaken by the European wealthy in the 18th century- will offer information and friendly support for the international art lovers and professionals on organizing their routes to and across Europe next summer, either for the exhibition previews or over the course of the following months, when the shows in Venice, Kassel and Münster will still be on view through the autumn.www.grandtour2007.com will merge with some web portals for the art traveller to book flights, hotels, shuttle services and anything that helps simplify the organization of a trip to the big art shows. The four partners also started a joint promotion of the Grand Tour 2007 in non-European areas – Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East – in order to reach new public, which hasn’t been involved in the western art scene yet. To this end, La Biennale di Venezia, documenta 12, skulptur projekte münster 07 and Art Basel agreed to realise a joint advertising campaign in the art magazines worldwide and joint information desks at the exhibitions in Venice, Basel, Kassel and Münster.