Alighiero Boetti: Major Retrospective at SMAC Venice (May 7 – November

Alighiero Boetti: retrospective at SMAC Venice

Period: May 7 – November 22, 2026

SMAC Venice stages a comprehensive retrospective devoted to Italian postwar master Alighiero Boetti (Torino 1940 – Roma 1994), curated by Elena Geuna and supported by international partners. The show brings together roughly one hundred works arranged in eight rooms, tracing Boetti's production from the late 1960s to the early 1990s.

The exhibition highlights recurring concerns in Boetti's practice: the duality of identity, systems of order and disorder, the interplay between concept and execution, and the significance of collaborative production. Key sections include the Biro drawings, embroidered works made with Afghan artisans, the famous Maps, the Airplanes, and the Calendars.

• Works on display: about 100
• Exhibition rooms: 8
• Main themes: doubled identity, mapping, system vs. chance, artistic collaboration
• Highlights: Self-portraits and Twins; Embroideries and Maps; Airplanes; Calendars

The show also examines Boetti's deliberate transfer of authorship: he set the conceptual framework and parameters while execution was carried out by others, allowing difference, duration and contingency to become integral to both form and meaning.

Visitor tips: the exhibition is organized to be experienced in sequence to follow the artist's conceptual development. Allocate at least 90 minutes to fully appreciate the textiles, maps and paper works.

The retrospective is organized with the collaboration of the Alighiero Boetti Archive and aims to present the artist's practice with clarity, showing how systematic approaches and playfully applied chance coexist in his work.