The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice is once again becoming a stage forcontemporary art with the third edition of Avvenimento, the format launched in 2023 that transforms the museum into a space for interdisciplinary experimentation. On Tuesday, September 9, from 7 to 11 p.m., the garden and rooms overlooking the Grand Canal will become the theater of a collective experience in which performance, dance, music and installations intertwine to investigate the most hidden boundaries of the creative process.
This edition, entitled Nos Bastidores do Estudo - “behind the scenes of the studio,” here is the link with all the info - takes inspiration from the exhibition Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. Anatomy of a Space, dedicated to Portuguese painter Maria Helena Vieira da Silva ’s rediscovered work(here’s our in-depth feature) now nearing its closure (the last day of the exhibition will be Sept. 15). The tribute to the artist not only evokes her linguistic origin, but takes on the word bastidores (theater wings) to bring back to the center what usually remains invisible: the backstage, the behind-the-scenes, the place of preparation, suspension and intimacy that precedes the work. Thus, the museum becomes a fluid environment, traversed by the audience not as mere spectators but as an integral part of a constantly moving organism.
Independent curator Edoardo Lazzari, creator of the project, conceived Event #3 as an event in three acts. The staging, entrusted to Cosimo Ferrigolo, transforms the Collection’s garden into an open-air film set: lights, structures and technical apparatus do not conceal their operation, but become themselves part of the dramaturgy, revealing the theatrical machine that usually remains behind the scenes.
Act I welcomes visitors into a dimension of listening and participation. The Royal Divorce collective presents The First Breath on Earth and its subsequent sublime collapse, a performance born out of a dramaturgy workshop conducted at the museum between Sept. 6 and 8. The work explores the liminal spaces of digital memory, mixing YouTube comments, algorithmic empathy and affective archives. Alongside them, Luca Gerry Conte proposes Solve et Coagula, a gastronomic-performance installation that invites the audience to transform edible ingredients into alchemical matter, fusing cuisine, ritual and symbolism.
The next step isIntermezzo, signed by artist and independent researcher Rac Montoro, who with A Trouble at Night is Not Your Karmic Wound brings to the stage a lecture-performance dedicated to the astrological figure of Chiron. Vulnerability here becomes the center of a collective reflection on the possibility of healing, understood as a shared rather than an individual process.
Act II, which takes place in the museum garden, features three performative appearances in dialogue with the space and the audience. Teodora Grano presents Daughters, an investigation into female genealogy and the possibility of rewriting the bonds between mothers and daughters through word, gesture and dance. Choreographer Annamaria Ajmone, together with designer Fabio Quaranta, activates a site-specific performance in which the body becomes the measure of space and the engine of collective experience. Finally, Sofia Naglieri proposes Devotions for Emergency Occasions, a performative tale that addresses illness and pain, transforming the body into a sensitive archive, a threshold between fragility and resistance.
Through these stages, Event #3 aims to question the distinction between completed work and creative process, reversing perspective and inviting the public to inhabit the “behind the scenes” as a place of knowledge and relationship. The museum, true to Peggy Guggenheim’s spirit, thus becomes a laboratory for research and new ideas, confirming its vocation to serve the future instead of recording the past.
The appointment is part of a public program that accompanies the Collection’s temporary exhibitions, with the aim of consolidating the museum’s role not only as a custodian of artistic heritage, but also as a space for living experimentation, capable of dialogue with the local and international community. Event, born two years ago, is establishing itself as a dynamic platform capable of connecting different artistic languages and creating experiences that transcend traditional museum fruition.
Admission to the event is free,by reservation subject to availability, confirming the desire to make culture an accessible and shared experience. The project has the support of the Venice Foundation, with Mousse Magazine as media partner, and the collaboration of numerous sponsors: Lavazza Inclusivity Supporter, Allegrini, Apice, Arper, Eurofood, Florim, Hangar Design Group, Itago, Mapei, Pettenon Cosmetics, René Caovilla, Roberto Coin, Rubelli, Swatch and Villa Sandi. With Event #3, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection reaffirms its identity as a place of encounter and experimentation, where the public is not simply a spectator but part of a process of collective discovery. An event that celebrates the memory of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and at the same time opens new perspectives on the relationship between art, the body and community.
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