The Hypervenezia exhibition by Mario Peliti at Palazzo Grassi

The Hypervenezia exhibition at Palazzo Grassi is a tribute to the urban fabric of Venice and an invitation to safeguard its architecture. After months of closure, Palazzo Grassi returns to the Venetian cultural scene and hosts the contemporary art exhibition from 5 September 2021 to 9 January 2022.

Hypervenezia: photography at the service of the city

This year Venice celebrates 1600 years since its foundation: many exhibitions and events celebrate its charm and importance over the centuries and in the contemporary world.

The Pinault collection wanted to pay homage to her with the Hypervenezia exhibition at Palazzo Grassi, inaugurated last September 5th. The exhibition presents Mario Peliti’s Venice Urban Photo Project exclusively to the general public, an incredible collection of black and white photographs in which the places and buildings of Venice are the only protagonists.

The exhibition will be hosted in the magnificent Palazzo Grassi, the last noble palace built before the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1772. Purchased by the Pinault Foundation in 2005 to make it an exhibition center for contemporary art collections, the Palazzo quickly became one of Venice’s most important cultural sites.

This autumn Palazzo Grassi will host Hypervenezia at the same time as the exhibition dedicated to the American artist Bruce Nauman (click here for more information). The Palazzo Grassi ticket allows access to both exhibitions, which will close together on January 9, 2022.

Mario Peliti photographer and archivist of the urban landscape

Peliti, publisher and gallery owner, was born in Rome but has lived in Venice since his teens and since 2006 he has been reconstructing, photo after photo, a visual map of the city: his goal is to restore a global image of Venice in the beginning. of the third millennium.

Peliti shoots strictly observing some formal principles such as the use of black and white, the same light condition in each photo, and the lack of shadows and people. These criteria ensure that the immense corpus has artistic and at the same time documentary value: Venice is portrayed as a pure urban fabric in a precise historical moment, a fifteen-year-long snapshot.

For sixty days every year, Peliti walks around Venice, until the light and (non) crowded conditions are not optimal. Each photograph is then identified with a geo-tag that allows you to find the exact point where it was taken.

To date, Mario Peliti has created and archived more than 12,000 photographs and with the support of the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage and the Central Institute for Catalog and Documentation (ICCD), he founded the Venice Urban Photo Archive, a visual archive that can be used in the future as a tool for the conservation of the city. Hypervenezia is Peliti’s first exhibition as a photographer.

The exhibition as an ideal and digital itinerary in the city

The exhibition, curated by Mathieu Humery, is organized around three site-specific installations, each one characterized by the presence of hundreds of different shots. The first is an ideal walk through the sestieri of Venice where you can observe the particularities and stratifications of the urban fabric.

Following, an installation where 900 images recreate, thanks to the use of geo-tags, a map of Venice showing the link between photographs, physical places, and the iconic shape of the city seen from above.

The third installation is instead an immersive environment in which 3000 photographs alternate around the visitors on the electronic notes of the composer Nicolas Godin. The songs by Godin, a member of the electronic duo Air, were composed exclusively for the exhibition.

The idea of Humery and Peliti is to present an alternative vision of Venice to the usual narrative: a Venice suspended in time, emptied of the millions of inhabitants and tourists who animate it, described and portrayed almost aseptically as pure archival material, without the emotional involvement that the city naturally arouses in its visitors.

In Peliti’s photographs, the purity of the urban fabric, the architectural and urban layering that make Venice a complex and fragile city-monument, the presence of contemporary architecture – which is there but cannot be seen, or does not want to be seen, emerge.

Hypervenezia is an unmissable event in autumn 2021 for architecture lovers, for anyone who wants to look at the lagoon city from a new point of view.

Opening hours and days

The exhibition is open every day, except Tuesdays, from 10 to 19. Last admission at 18.

The cost of the ticket is 15 euros, 12 euros reduced.
To purchase it, download the MyPass Venezia APP! Skip the line and enter the exhibition directly!

How to reach Palazzo Grassi

The HyperVenezia exhibition at Palazzo Grassi can be reached on foot or by the ACTV ferry service from the Station / Piazzale Roma (line 1, San Samuele stop) or the Rialto Bridge (line 1, San Samuele stop).

On MyPass Venezia you can buy tickets for ACTV! All your tickets on one APP.

 

Bruce Nauman at Punta della Dogana

With the same ticket, we remind you that you can visit the exhibition dedicated to the artist Bruce Nauman on display at Punta Della Dogana, the second headquarters of the Pinault Foundation in Venice, which was once the Dogana da Mar of the Serenissima Republic.

Punta Della Dogana overlooks the San Marco Basin, therefore during the visits to contemporary art exhibitions you can also enjoy a breathtaking view of the Lagoon.

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