Mestre, M9 launches M9 Contemporary, a new project dedicated to the arts of the present

Museo M9 - Museo del ’900 di Venezia Mestre inaugurates M9 Contemporaneo, a new design identity dedicated to the artistic expressions of the present. With this initiative, the museum expands its cultural reach by proposing a container designed to host exhibitions and initiatives that put the memory of the 20th century in dialogue with contemporary issues and urgencies. M9 Contemporaneo was not created as a circumscribed exhibition space, but as a project platform spread throughout the museum. The aim is to build a unified framework capable of hosting artistic projects that address the present through different languages, while maintaining a link with the historical vocation of the institution, which has always been committed to the interpretation of the last century.

The new project kicks off with two complementary exhibition itineraries that can be visited from March 13 to April 12, 2026, occupying different spaces of the museum and addressing different but converging themes in the reflection on contemporaneity. The first event is the solo exhibition of Venetian artist Michelangelo Penso entitled Invisible Resonances, set up in room M9 Horizons on the second floor. The exhibition is curated by Leo Lecci, professor of History of Contemporary Art at the University of Genoa, and is organized in collaboration with the Alberta Pane Gallery. The exhibition features three impressive site-specific installations that transform scientific research into an artistic and sensory experience. Penso’s work focuses on what eludes the human gaze, bringing to light normally invisible dimensions and translating into visual and sound form phenomena belonging to the world of microbiology, molecules and cellular processes. The universe of the infinitely small thus becomes the starting point for a journey that interweaves science and art. Through his works, the artist investigates biological and cosmic structures and dynamics, transforming them into immersive installations that engage the audience.

The exhibition opens with the work Chronotype, an installation inspired by the physical concept of four-dimensional space. The work takes its cue from the aesthetics of the VIRGO gravitational observatory and takes the form of a structure composed of stacks of glass bells and rubber strips representing the eight planets of the solar system. The work is designed to interact directly with visitors. Using sensors activated by the body mass of people walking through the installation space, sounds and LED lights are activated, making the orbital frequencies of the planets perceptible. The public thus becomes an integral part of the work, contributing to its activation and the transformation of the exhibition space. The second installation, Magnetic Nanoparticles Genesis, is a collaboration between Michelangelo Penso and the Italian Institute of Technology. The work takes its cue from scientific research on magnetic nanoparticles used in the medical field and translates these investigations into a multisensory experience. Through a system of shapes, materials and vibrations, the installation returns to the public a perceptual dimension of phenomena that normally belong to the field of scientific research and are not directly observable. The work represents one of the clearest examples of the dialogue between art and science that characterizes the artist’s work. The third installation, entitled Sirtuins, on the other hand, addresses the theme of cellular processes related to DNA repair. Indeed, sirtuins are proteins that are fundamental to the mechanisms of cell protection and regeneration.

Penso translates this complex biological reality into a large sculptural structure composed of metal circles and purple synthetic fibers. The work, which has already been presented at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, reproduces on a macroscopic scale the functioning of these cellular processes, creating a visual environment that evokes the dynamics of protecting the genetic heritage.

Parallel to the Michelangelo Penso exhibition, the new M9 Contemporaneo project is hosting a second exhibition dedicated to the contemporary landscape. Indeed, the M9 Passages space, in the museum’s second-floor corridor, hosts the exhibition The Serene Restlessness of the Land, with the subtitle Into the Land. The exhibition takes its name from a project born in 2016 on the initiative of photographer Giovanni Cecchinato. Originally conceived as a virtual workshop dedicated to reflecting on the landscape, the project has gradually transformed into an interdisciplinary platform involving photographers, writers, architects and journalists.

The Into the Land workshop is characterized by an ongoing research on landscape transformations and the relationship between territory, community and processes of change. The exhibition presented at M9 brings together a selection of works from larger photographic projects that analyze the transformations of the contemporary Veneto landscape. The exhibition is produced under the patronage of the Order of Architects Planners Landscapers and Conservators of Venice and with the collaboration of architect Alessandro Angeli.

The images presented in the exhibition tell the story of a territory in constant evolution, traversed by often silent but profound changes. The visual narrative oscillates between two different but complementary approaches. On the one hand, a documentary and analytical reading is developed that is in the tradition of the New Topographics, the photographic movement born in the United States in the 1970s and characterized by a rigorous look at the relationship between human intervention and the environment. On the other hand, a more authorial and interpretive dimension emerges, in which the landscape is observed through an artistic sensibility capable of transforming real space into a broader visual narrative.

“M9 is a museum that, by vocation, interrogates the past to offer keys to the present,” says Serena Bertolucci, Director of M9 - Museo del ’900. “M9 Contemporaneo was born out of the need to formalize this constant tension, looking at today’s languages of art as a natural extension of the narrative of the twentieth century that we carry on in the permanent exhibition. Through this new project, M9 strengthens its role as an observatory on the present, where history is intertwined with contemporary sensibility to help us decipher the complexities of the world in which we live.”

The inaugural M9 Contemporary exhibitions are on view from March 13 to April 12, 2026. Admission is included in the museum’s permanent exhibition ticket or can be purchased separately at a cost of five euros.

Mestre, M9 launches M9 Contemporary, a new project dedicated to the arts of the present

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