Georg Baselitz. Archinto, 2021, Venice, Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Sala del Portego | © Georg Baselitz | Photo: Matteo De Fina | Courtesy Gagosian

Set up on the main floor of the ancient residence of the Grimani family, the exhibition includes twelve canvases specially made by Georg Baselitz for the Sala del Portego and placed in its original eighteenth-century stucco frames, which up to the 19th century housed the family portraits of the noble inhabitants of the building. The works, which thanks to a more unique than rare agreement between the well-known contemporary artist (born in 1938) and the Venetian museum will remain on long-term loan, trigger a fluid and constant dialogue between classical and contemporary art that enriches, showing it in a new light, the cultural offer of Palazzo Grimani itself. The title of the exhibition and the works that compose it refer to the enigmatic Portrait of Cardinal Filippo Archinto that Titian painted in 1558, characterized by a dense brushstroke that confuses the figure with the background. The canvases of Baselitz, famous for his inverted images, are flanked by some impressive bronze and copper sculptures, such as Zero Mobil (Zero Mobile) (2014) - a dark copper knot that disrupts the theatrical architecture of the museum's central hall - and the related Marokkaner (Moroccan) (2012) and Bündel (Fascio).

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