The Quantum Effect
SMAC Venice, 2025

The Quantum Effect is a cross-disciplinary exhibition co-curated by Daniel Birnbaum and Jacqui Davies, and produced by SMAC Venice in collaboration with OGR Torino. Opening on 5 September 2025 and running until 23 November 2025, the exhibition explores the spatial and temporal paradoxes of quantum theory — parallel universes, time travel, teleportation, supersymmetry, and dark matter — through an interweaving of major artworks, scientific experiments, quantum mechanical equations, and imagery drawn from science fiction and popular culture.

The exhibition is structured symmetrically around Isa Genzken's mirror room Oil VII (2007), with galleries to either side experienced as parallel states. Works by Dara Birnbaum, Jeff Koons, Mark Leckey, John McCracken, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, Tomás Saraceno, and Sturtevant are woven together with curator-made cinematic elements and a new film by Davies. The conceptual framework draws on Raymond Roussel's novel Locus Solus and marks the centenary of the quantum breakthroughs associated with Planck and Einstein. Ulf Danielsson, Professor of Theoretical Physics and Secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physics, served as special science advisor.