From November 5, 2026, to February 14, 2027, the Palazzetto Marcello in Venice will host*L’inizio ci assale*, the first exhibition held in the building on Calle del Dose, in the Castello district. The featured artist is Luca Bertolo (Milan, 1968), who lives and works in Seravezza, in an exhibition curated by Elena Volpato.
The project brings together forty works—including recent and previously unseen pieces—displayed on the main floor and ground floor of the building. The title draws on the words of a poem by Milo De Angelis—previously referenced by Bertolo in his paintings—and identifies “the beginning” as the central theme around which the exhibition unfolds. Every beginning, the project suggests, involves an element of courage and one of surrender—the impulse to attack and the willingness to be attacked.
This reflection extends beyond the relationship between the artist and the creation of a new work. The “beginning” is viewed as a human dimension of time, linked to the continuous repetition of small and large cycles of birth and death, as well as to the emergence and decline of cultural forms.
In Bertolo’s painting, the perpetual renewal of art is linked to contemporary history, in which, according to the curator, a tribal element seems to resurface simultaneously as both a threat and a promise. The reference is also to the storming of Capitol Hill five years ago, when a crowd led by a man wearing horns and a bearskin—who became known as the QAnon conspiracy “shaman”—stormed the U.S. Capitol building.
The theme of origin is also linked to a renewed interest in prehistory—fueled by recent academic studies—and to the work of certain artists who have long engaged with realms where magical and symbolic thought coexists with a desire to reestablish a connection with a primordial dimension. The concept of “the beginning” thus takes on contradictory forms, in which troglodytic crudeness coexists with the enchantment of the primordial. Even the term “shaman” becomes ambivalent, capable of referring both to a manifestation of political brutality and to certain contemporary artistic expressions.
This ambivalence also permeates the works presented by Bertolo. Alongside paintings and drawings, the exhibition includes a series of sticks created over the past two years. These are not walking sticks, but artifacts defined as “shamanic,” born from the primitive act of smoothing a branch gathered in the woods to transform it into an instrument of war or civilization. Added to this foundation is the use of diverse materials, ranging from animal bones to colorful industrial down feathers. The objects are thus situated in a temporal dimension that is difficult to define: both archaic and postmodern, they symbolically occupy the point of convergence between beginning and end.
Finally, the choice of Venice as the venue for the first exhibition in this project takes on further significance. The city is presented as a symbol of the refined aesthetic exhaustion of Western civilization, exposed to the risk of dissolution and the threat of an end that may coincide with a new beginning for nature. During the exhibition period, there will also be talks with the artist, the curator, and other guests, dedicated to exploring some of the themes developed by the project in greater depth.
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| Luca Bertolo reflects on the origins of art with “L’inizio ci assale” in Venice |
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