Alighiero Boetti in Venice: SMAC Venice Retrospective of Maps and

Alighiero Boetti in Venice: SMAC Venice retrospective

From 7 May to 22 November 2026, SMAC Venice (San Marco Art Centre) hosts a retrospective dedicated to Alighiero Boetti, gathering roughly one hundred works displayed in eight rooms. Curated by Elena Geuna, the exhibition is part of the Biennale Arte 2026 calendar and reconstructs the artist’s practice from the late 1960s to the early 1990s.

Born in Turin in 1940, Boetti stands among the leading figures of Italian avant‑garde. While connected to Arte Povera, his approach evolved into a distinct practice centered on systems, rules and collaborative production. The show highlights how, for Boetti, the artwork often functions as a generative device rather than a finished object.

What to see

The exhibition emphasizes recurring themes in his work: duality, time, classification and instability. Key sections include:

• The Maps: embroidered world maps updated to reflect geopolitical changes, illustrating a constantly shifting world.
• Letter embroideries and postal works, where set rules allow for unforeseen variations.
• Biro drawings and combinatory systems that foreground process and accumulation.
• The notion of the double: adopting the signature "Alighiero e Boetti" as a method to question singular authorship.

Practical information

• Dates: 7 May – 22 November 2026
• Venue: SMAC Venice (San Marco Art Centre), Venice
• Curator: Elena Geuna
• Works on display: about 100, across 8 rooms
• Period covered: late 1960s – early 1990s

The retrospective aims to convey the complexity of Boetti’s systems and to show how time and collaboration are integral to his practice. Close observation of the embroidered maps and stitched details is recommended to appreciate the relationship between conception, execution and variation.