Alighiero Boetti
SMAC Venice, 2026

Alighiero Boetti is a major retrospective dedicated to the Italian post-war master Alighiero Boetti (Turin, 1940 – Rome, 1994), curated by Elena Geuna and supported by Ben Brown Fine Arts. Bringing together approximately one hundred works across eight galleries at the SMAC Venice spaces within the Procuratie at Piazza San Marco — a historic building restored by Pritzker Prize-winning architect David Chipperfield — the exhibition spans more than twenty-five years of the artist's practice, from the late 1960s to the early 1990s.

Conceived as a constellation that invites visitors to inhabit the space between idea and form, order and disorder, the exhibition charts Boetti's enduring engagement with duality, systems, and process. The show opens with questions of self-portraiture and identity — the inquiry that led to his adoption of the dual signature "Alighiero e Boetti" in 1972 — and extends outward through his celebrated Mappe, embroideries, and Biro works, in which Boetti defined rules and structures while delegating execution to skilled artisans in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Archivio Alighiero Boetti and is on view from 7 May to 22 November 2026, coinciding with the 61st Venice Art Biennale.