Venice, which has always been a city of exchange, connection, internationalism and interculturalism, now offers itself as the perfect metaphor for an art market that thrives on crossovers and cross-pollination. It is no surprise that it has recently been chosen as the setting for new art gallery openings, attracted by the light that has always characterised the lagoon city and continues to exert a magnetic charm. In this scenario, the French presence is becoming increasingly significant: with the recent opening of 193 Gallery and Galerie Negropontes, an axis already traced in 2017 by Galleria Alberta Pane, a pioneer of dialogue between Venice and Paris, is being reinforced and is now taking on new substance. Together, these realities outline a partnership that consolidates the city’s international vocation and opens up new intertwining languages and perspectives, of which the exhibitions currently underway offer a concrete example.
Aldo Chaparro, “Are we still pretending this is not about us?”, 2025, exhibition view at 193 Gallery Venice, ph. Gabriele Bortoluzzi, courtesy 193 Gallery
Opened as a pop-up space in the Zattere area in 2022, 193 Gallery established its permanent home in Venice in 2024, a city now recognised as an essential player in international contemporary art. Founded in 2018 by César Levy and Linda Franco, with locations in Paris and Saint-Tropez, 193 Gallery stands out for its commitment to promoting the richness of global art scenes, with a particular focus on those in the Global South – from the Caribbean to Africa, Latin America to Southeast Asia – and the dialogue between them. The aim is to move beyond traditional Western interpretations by offering plural and alternative perspectives. The exhibition Are we still pretending this is not about us?, Aldo Chaparro‘s first solo show in Venice, which runs until 23 November 2025, is part of this approach. Housed in the former Solveni pharmacy, the exhibition intertwines sculpture and painting in a play of tensions between matter and emotion, between control and abandonment. Sculpted, polished or fractured metal forms coexist with layered and meditative pictorial surfaces, inviting visitors to participate in an experience that places them not as distant observers but as active interlocutors.
Aldo Chaparro, “Are we still pretending this is not about us?”, 2025, exhibition view at 193 Gallery Venice, ph. Gabriele Bortoluzzi, courtesy 193 Gallery
This idea of involvement, of continuous exchange between subject and work, returns in a more intimate and reflective form in João Vilhena‘s exhibition Predizione Perdizione at the Alberta Pane Gallery, open until 22 November 2025. While 193 Gallery opens its gaze to the world and its fluid geographies, Alberta Pane turns its gaze inward, where memory is layered like a palimpsest of signs and absences. In Vilhena’s large drawings, made with pierre noire powder on grey cardboard, figures emerge and dissolve, oscillating between recognisability and loss. The artistic gesture becomes an act of excavation, a way of bringing to light the ruins of history and, at the same time, the anxieties of the present. Between destruction and rebirth, the artist questions the gaze itself, forcing it to confront the ambiguity of vision, with its constant shifting between appearance and truth. It is an underground dialogue with the history of the European image, but also with the fragility of our perception: if Chaparro invites us to participate in the living matter of the world, Vilhena asks us to traverse time, to inhabit uncertainty.
João Vilhena, “Predizione Perdizione”, 2025, exhibition view at Alberta Pane Venice, courtesy Galleria Alberta Pane (Parigi-Venezia)
In turn, Galerie Negropontes adds a third level of interpretation to this dialogue: that of matter becoming form, of light becoming architecture. With Architectural and Design Landscapes, the gallery renews its vocation to create a dialogue between art and design. On the ground floor of the Palazzina Masieri, designed by Carlo Scarpa, which encapsulates its main architectural and stylistic elements, Gianluca Pacchioni‘s sculptures create an imaginary garden, amplified by the Pinton tapestry. The comparison with Scarpa continues on the first floor with Perrin & Perrin‘s glassworks depicting urban fragments and traces. The second floor, on the other hand, hosts the Venice Design Biennale series of vases created by Maison Matisse with Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Jaime Hayon and Alessandro Mendini, true exercises in metamorphosis: painting becomes volume, decoration becomes light and heritage is transformed into contemporary language. Alongside the designer vases there is a selection of jewellery by artists represented by the gallery on the theme of mythology and surrealism. As in 193 Gallery and Alberta Pane, here too the work is never a closed object, but a threshold between worlds, a continuous crossing between function, form and vision.
AA.VV., “Architectural and Design Landscapes”, 2025, exhibition view at Galerie Negropontes Venice, courtesy Galerie Negropontes, ph. Gabriele Bortoluzzi
In this three-way dialogue, the Venice of French galleries appear as a pulsating organism, where time refracts like light on water. Chaparro shapes matter to restore its energy; Vilhena traverses it to discover the shadows that inhabit it; at Negropontes, it is transfigured into a harmony of signs and transparencies. Three different perspectives, but united by a common desire: to bridge the gap between art and life, between history and the present, between the object and the viewer. Thus, Paris and Venice are no longer just two cities, but two ways of seeing, one that projects, the other that reflects. In their encounter, the lagoon’s art scene today finds a new identity, aware of its own tradition but open to the world, where every exhibition, like every reflection on water, is a different way of questioning light.
Elena Barison
Info:
Aldo Chaparro. Are we still pretending this is not about us?
30/08 – 23/11/2025
193 Gallery
Dorsoduro 993/994, Venezia
193gallery.com
João Vilhena. Predizione Perdizione
20/09 – 22/11/2025
Galleria Alberta Pane
Calle dei Guardiani 2403/h, Dorsoduro, Venezia
albertapane.com
Venice Design Biennal 2025. Architectural and Design Landscapes
05/09/2025 – 22/11/2025
Negropontes Galerie
Dorsoduro 3900, 30123, Venezia
negropontes-galerie.com
Elena Barison is a contemporary art historian specializing in the relationships between art, ecology and gender studies. She explored the verbal-visual practices of the neo-avant-garde with a thesis on Tomaso Binga, whose archive she now curates in Rome. She collaborates with Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice and with various independent organizations and magazines.
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