Venice 20.26: five Italian artists give voice back to the Venice Arsenal

As the 61st Venice International Art Exhibition prepares to open its doors, the international and national media spotlight has focused on the absence of Italian artists. Within the same physical and symbolic perimeter of the Biennale, however, a parallel reality is taking shape that, without controversy, reintroduces the Italian presence in the heart of theArsenale: Venice 20.26, a group exhibition that will open on April 29 and 30, 2026, at Spazio Thetis and will remain open until October, coinciding with the duration of the official event.

The curatorship of Manuela Sandri, art historian and founder of the online project WWW.ARTMADEINSICILY.COM in anticipation of the new platform www.artmainitaly.org, has enabled the construction of a living and complex artistic body, capable of representing the global transformations that characterize the third millennium. The intent is to propose a reflection on the resilience of creativity, capable of articulating itself in multiple organs and offering new perspectives on contemporary art.

The exhibition was not born as a response to the absence reported by the media, but rather from a project consolidated over time, but its symbolic value today seems inevitable. Five Italian artists, Angelo Crazyone, Vincenzo Profeta, Andrea Morucchio, Luca Rossi and Pucci Scafidi, enter the Venetian scene bringing national creative vitality to the center of international interest. Their work resurfaces as a testimony to the resilience and continuity of Italian art, an invitation to look beyond the apparent media silence.

The title of the group show, Venice 20.26, concentrates in itself several levels of meaning. It indicates the time of the ribbon-cutting and culminating moment of performative activation, marks the year 2026 coinciding with the Biennale, and recalls Venice as a continuous laboratory in which memory, transformation and fragility coexist. The exhibition thus becomes a narrative map for traversing the present, with the five artists operating like dowsers in search of invisible sources, to guide the audience through a contemporary context that often appears deserted and inactive. Thetis Space, chosen for its ability to combine vintage elements with advanced technologies, serves as an ideal setting for the group show.

Venice 20.26: five Italian artists give voice back to the Venice Arsenal

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