Venice 2026: The Spring Exhibitions to See

(just a few minutes from the Ruzzini Palace Hotel)

This spring, Venice is not simply visited — it is experienced as a passage.

Starting from Ruzzini means already being at the very heart of this system, where major international institutions coexist with more experimental spaces in a rare balance.

Within just a few minutes’ walk, one moves from urgent painting to conceptual research, from archives to performance.

It is here that the city reveals its most authentic nature: not a museum, but a living organism. Within a short radius of the Ruzzini, an extraordinary density unfolds — from Palazzo Grimani to Palazzo Vendramin Grimani, from the State Archives to the Arsenale.

This is not just a matter of convenience: it is a cultural micro-district that, in spring 2026, becomes one of the most active hubs in the entire Venetian art system.

1. 61ª Biennale Arte

In Minor Keys

📍 Giardini & Arsenale — 10 min from Ruzzini

🗓 from May 6, 2026 – November 22, 2026

The heart of the Venetian season. The 2026 Venice Art Biennale adopts a more intimate and reflective tone, moving away from the spectacle of previous editions.

Amid fragility, memory, and practices of repair, the exhibition unfolds a political and sensitive narrative, where emerging voices engage with global urgencies.

A Biennale that is less monumental, yet perhaps more necessary.

2. Lorna Simpson & Paulo Nazareth

Third Person + Algebra

📍 Punta della Dogana — 15 min da Ruzzini


🗓 March 29, 2026 – November 22, 2026

The Pinault Collection presents one of the most compelling projects of the Venetian season.

On one side, Lorna Simpson unveils her first major European retrospective dedicated to painting: works, collages, and installations explore identity, memory, and representation through suspended images and fragmented narratives.

On the other, Paulo Nazareth transforms travel into a political and poetic gesture: Algebra unfolds as a dispersed performance, traversing diaspora, colonialism, and memory, evoking bodies, borders, and unrecorded histories.

Two autonomous exhibitions in dialogue, making Punta della Dogana an essential stop in spring 2026.

3. Michael Armitage & Amar Kanwar

The Promise of Change

📍 Palazzo Grassi — 18 min da Ruzzini

🗓 March 29, 2026 – January 10, 2027


The Pinault Collection presents a major exhibition dedicated to Michael Armitage, one of the most incisive voices in contemporary painting.

Balancing figuration and dreamlike vision, Armitage weaves together history, memory, and current events: elections, violence, migration, and political tensions emerge through layered, unstable imagery. Central to his practice is the use of lubugo, an organic fabric that replaces canvas, turning painting into a living surface.

A powerful and immersive journey, where art does not console but questions, staging both the promises — and the fractures — of change.

4. Joseph Kosuth

The Exchange Value of Language Has Fallen to Zero

📍 Casa dei Tre Oci — 20 min from Ruzzini (vaporetto)

🗓 from March 28, 2026

A symbolic and powerful return: Joseph Kosuth reopens the Casa dei Tre Oci with a radical project on language.

A pioneer of conceptual art, Kosuth stages words, light, and space as tools of knowledge. From his historic works of the 1960s to new site-specific interventions, language becomes experience, challenging meaning, perception, and reality.

A rigorous and essential exhibition that brings Venice back to the center of the international debate on conceptual art.

5. Anish Kapoor

📍 Palazzo Manfrin — 12 min from Ruzzini

🗓 from May 5, 2026

One of the most anticipated events of the season: Anish Kapoor inaugurates his Venetian foundation with a major retrospective.

Spanning over forty years of research, the exhibition brings together architectural models, iconic works, and new productions, exploring matter, void, and perception. Immersive installations and visionary projects transform space into both a physical and mental experience.

Not just an exhibition, but the beginning of a new permanent hub for contemporary art in Venice.

6. Marina Abramović

Transforming Energy

📍 Gallerie dell’Accademia —5 min from Ruzzini

🗓 May 6 – October 19, 2026

A historic milestone: Marina Abramović is the first living female artist to headline a major exhibition at the Gallerie dell’Accademia.

Between iconic performances and new installations, her work enters into direct dialogue with Renaissance masterpieces, transforming the museum into a space of experience and presence. The audience does not simply observe, but participates: body, energy, and perception become part of the work itself.

More than an exhibition, it is a meditative and immersive experience set to define the Venetian season.

7. Amoako Boafo

📍 Palazzo Grimani — 3 min from Ruzzini

🗓 May 6, 2026 – November 22, 2026

The closest exhibition — and one of the most surprising: Amoako Boafo presents his first solo show in Italy.

His portraits, created by applying pigment directly with his fingers, bring a vibrant and physical form of painting into the Renaissance rooms of Palazzo Grimani. Here, the Venetian tradition meets a new representation of contemporary identity.

A powerful dialogue between past and present, at the very heart of the city.

8. Dayanita Singh

📍 Archivio di Stato —8 min from Ruzzini

🗓 April 16 – July 31, 2026

One of the most intelligent exhibitions of the season — and among the most unexpected. For the first time, the State Archives opens as an exhibition space.

Dayanita Singh transforms the archive into a living organism: photographs, modular structures, and images in dialogue with documents and historic spaces rethink the very concept of memory.

A refined and conceptual project that redefines the relationship between art, archive, and narrative.

9. Patrick Saytour

La piega e il tempo

📍 Palazzo Vendramin Grimani 4 min from Ruzzini

🗓 April 18 – November 22, 2026

A quiet and radical exhibition. Patrick Saytour brings to Venice a practice shaped by folds, cuts, and transformations of matter.

Burnt, stitched, and deformed fabrics enter into dialogue with the Renaissance spaces of the palazzo, creating a tension between fragility and permanence. The work is not only seen — it is felt.

A refined and contemplative project, far removed from the more spectacular narratives of the season.
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Within this compact and surprising geography, distance is not merely a physical measure, but a cultural condition: everything is close, everything is accessible, everything is simultaneous.

In spring 2026, Venice does not ask to be planned — but to be experienced freely, following personal trajectories between major institutions and unexpected discoveries.

And starting from Ruzzini means enjoying a rare privilege:
that of inhabiting, even if only for a few days, the living center of this system.