EXHIBITION REVIEW
VENICE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR – 25TH EDITION 2026
Palazzo Pisani-Revedin, Venice | September 17 – 24, 2026
Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, Venice | September 18 – October 02, 2026

ITSLIQUID Group is delighted to celebrate the opening of the 25th edition of VENICE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR, presented as part of ANIMA MUNDI, bringing the international art community together in Venice on September 17 at Palazzo Pisani-Revedin, and on September 18 at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, alongside the 61st Venice Biennale. Designed to weave meaningful global networks, the event serves as an interactive hub where over 100 talented artists from more than 30 countries converge to shape lasting international connections. Through a rich intersection of painting, sculpture, photography, performance and video art, the exhibition invited a global audience to explore the multi-layered depths of contemporary artistic research.

Click here to read more about the press release

Click here to see the full photo reportage of Palazzo Pisani-Revedin
Click here to see the full photo reportage of Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello

The 25th edition of the VENICE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR unfolds as a fluid investigation into the ways contemporary art can reshape our perception of identity, space, memory, and human experience. Developed through the two main sections LIQUID ROOMS and FUTURE LANDSCAPES, the project moves between the hidden dimensions of identity, perception, and consciousness and the more abstract and conceptual environments in which body, mind, memory, and the places we inhabit continuously intersect.

Rather than presenting a single, linear narrative, the exhibition creates a constellation of different artistic languages, where painting, photography, sculpture, installation, performance, and mixed media become different ways of questioning how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. The artists participating in the project enrich this dialogue by bringing together intimate experiences, collective memories, physical gestures, imagined environments, and new forms of visual expression. The first opening, held on September 17 at the historic Palazzo Pisani Revedin, immediately established this atmosphere of exchange. The prestigious Venetian architecture became a meeting point between historical memory and contemporary artistic research, allowing the artworks to enter into a continuous dialogue with the identity of the city.

The curatorial journey begins with the solo exhibition ABOUT PEOPLE by German artist Thomas Ruhl, whose photo-based works explore the lives, cultures, emotions, and contradictions of people encountered throughout decades of photographic practice. By combining black-and-white photography with hand-applied colour, digital interventions, and elements of text, Ruhl creates works suspended between photography and painting. His subjects are individuals whose personal stories become part of a wider reflection on human dignity, empathy, and belonging.

A different but equally compelling dimension of this exploration emerged through the solo exhibition dedicated to Maria Elena Lavie, whose presence within the project expands the conversation around painting, colour, and the expressive potential of the pictorial surface. Her vibrant visual language introduces another way of approaching perception: not as a fixed act of recognition, but as an experience in which colour, rhythm, gesture, and emotion can transform the way an image is received.

Among the highlights of the evening was the live performance by Patricia Graham, who transformed her artistic practice into a direct and immediate encounter with the audience. During the evening, the American self-taught artist painted live on garments of her own creation, later presenting them through a fashion performance with her models. Her practice, rooted in themes of identity, healing, human connection, and the desire to make people feel seen, offered a particularly powerful interpretation of the relationship between the inner self and its external expression.

The works of Anna Zora Schmitt further extended the reflection on the body and its relationship with memory and social experience. Working across painting, assemblage, and sculptural installation, Schmitt places the female body at the centre of her research, investigating dignity, labour, intimacy, vulnerability, and the structures inscribed upon the body. A more delicate relationship between body, nature, and material emerged in the sculptural works of Isabelle Leirens: through elegant and refined forms inspired by natural elements, her practice establishes a sensitive dialogue between organic structures and the act of transformation. Her sculptural language suggests a process of collecting, composing, decomposing, and recomposing, allowing natural traces to become new forms.

The second opening, held on September 18 at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, expanded this dialogue into a particularly evocative relationship between contemporary artistic research and the historical identity of Venice. The Renaissance palace, with its historical interiors, architectural details, and layers of historical memory, provided a unique environment in which contemporary works could confront the passage of time and the continuous transformation of space.

As part of the second opening was UTOPIA, the solo exhibition by Greek artist Despoina Stathaki. Her luminous mixed-media paintings create dreamlike environments where the deep blues of the Aegean Sea meet gold dust, gold leaf, and liquid glass. Mythological creatures emerge from these radiant surfaces, suspended between ancient narratives and contemporary imagination. In this context, UTOPIA opens a space for reflection on the possibility of constructing alternative realities through art, imagination, and memory.

This idea of the artwork as an emotional environment continues through Ruxandra Chendi’s paintings, where colour, texture, and materiality transform the canvas into a tactile field of memory and connection. Her works move between intimate experiences, femininity, human relationships, and cultural memory, creating a visual language in which the past is materially reconstructed on the surface of the painting. The investigation of internal landscapes takes another direction in the practice of Ela Morar, whose architectural background becomes the starting point for a new visual language. In her series “Emotional Landscapes”, patterns once associated with structure, proportion, and spatial rhythm are transformed into intuitive compositions where geometry becomes movement and architecture becomes memory. The relationship between gesture and space is further explored in the large-format paintings of Tamara Herceg, where the surface of the canvas becomes an arena for physical presence and transformation. Gesture, colour, and texture operate as interconnected elements, recording the energy of the creative process through layers, scratches, accumulations, erasures, and renewed interventions.

Photography introduces yet another perspective on the relationship between individuals and the spaces they inhabit through the work of Harald Hauswald. Having developed his practice around people in public spaces, Hauswald’s images have long examined the tension between individual experience and broader social realities. His continued interest in observing people within their environments resonates strongly with VIAF25’s investigation of space as something that is social, psychological, and deeply connected to the way we perceive one another. A different understanding of transformation emerges through Jenny Chen’s abstract practice and her series Trilogy of Becoming. Drawing on her previous experience as a management consultant and her interest in human growth and resilience, Chen uses layered textures, organic forms, and mixed media to explore the process of becoming without relying on a literal narrative. 

All together the selected artists enrich the project by expanding the meaning of LIQUID ROOMS and FUTURE LANDSCAPES: identity becomes material, memory becomes space, the body becomes landscape, and perception becomes a process of continuous transformation. VENICE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR – 25th Edition presents itself as a space for creative exploration, investigating how contemporary art can bring inner and outer realities into dialogue, allowing them to meet, overlap, and transform one another, while inviting the viewer to move freely between what is visible and what lies beneath the surface.

organized by ITSLIQUID Group
curator Luca Curci
general manager Giulia Tassi
project manager Amaride Ferrante
project coordinator Annachiara Recchia
collaborators Maria Elena Apollonio, Carlotta De Lucia, Gaia Olivati
artists coordinators Maria Arban, Aaliyah Kiekens
graphic designer Sara De Rosa

VENICE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR – 25TH EDITION 2026

Palazzo Pisani-Revedin
S. Marco, 4013A, Venice

EXHIBITION DAYS
September 18 – September 24, 2026
Tuesday – Sunday | 10.30 AM – 01.30 PM and 02.30 PM – 06.00 PM

Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello
Associazione Culturale Italo-Tedesca (ACIT), Cannaregio 4118, Venice

EXHIBITION DAYS
September 21 – October 02
Monday – Friday | 09:30 AM – 05:30 PM

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ABOUT US

ITSLIQUID Group is an international contemporary art platform connecting artists, curators, galleries, institutions, and creative professionals through exhibitions, art fairs, festivals, competitions, and cultural projects.

Founded in 2001 by Luca Curci, ITSLIQUID has developed a network of cultural partners worldwide, with exhibition spaces in Venice, Rome, London, and Barcelona.

ITSLIQUID offers a comprehensive range of services for creatives, including solo and group shows, dedicated interviews, featured articles, and online contests. The aim is to use new technologies to make art accessible globally and connect artists from around the world.

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ITSLIQUID Group manages a variety of art spaces all over the world; among them, Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello in Venice and different historical buildings, ELEMENTS Contemporary Art Space in the London city centre and other partners worldwide. Since 2001, ITSLIQUID Group has organised over 350 international events, engaging more than 10,000 artists across over 60 global venues. Its initiatives have featured prestigious museums like the CCCB – Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona in Spain, the NCCA – National Center for Contemporary Arts in Moscow, the MuMo – Museum Montanelli in Prague, and the MUST Museum in Lecce, in addition to numerous galleries and private foundations. Thanks to its partnership with Sedition, ITSLIQUID has presented masters such as Bill Viola and Refik Anadol, offering high-level opportunities for young, mid-career, and renowned artists.

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