Barbati Gallery presents evolving group show in Venice

Barbati Gallery in Venice has opened an evolving group exhibition curated by Luca Lo Pinto, initially featuring works by Jason Dodge, with additional contributions from Merry Alpern, Yvo Cho, Keta Gavvasheli, Megan Plunkett, and Felice Tosalli to be added in subsequent weeks. The show, titled with an excessively long name, embraces a processual format that unfolds over time, challenging traditional exhibition models. This approach, while not unprecedented—recalling precedents like Harald Szeemann's 1969 'Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form' at Kunsthalle Bern and more recently terzospazio's 'Steel Toe Acts' in Venice (2025)—is notably applied within a commercial gallery context. Dodge's interventions occupy Palazzo Lezze's ground floor with a scattered nest of feathers and natural/artificial elements, while upstairs, works include intermittent lights, plastic sheets altering visitor paths, feathers in electrical sockets, and white drips on historic floors. These conceptual pieces engage perception and disorientation, echoing tendencies seen in Michael E. Smith's exhibition at Palazzo Bentivoglio in Bologna. The gallery signals future additions with nails and reserved spaces, emphasizing collaborative constellations, a relational theory increasingly common in contemporary exhibitions, as seen in Julie Mehretu's 2024 show at Palazzo Grassi and Tolia Astakhishvili's 2025 exhibition at Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation.