Michael Armitage and Amar Kanwar at Palazzo Grassi

Pinault Collection presents two major solo exhibitions at Palazzo Grassi, featuring Kenyan-British painter Michael Armitage and Indian multimedia artist Amar Kanwar. Together, these exhibitions bridge the gap between art and activism, exploring sociopolitical tensions, the migration crisis, and the resilience of the human spirit through a blend of documentary reality and dreamlike vision.

Michael Armitage showcases forty-five large-scale paintings and over one hundred studies that redefine contemporary figurative art. Rejecting traditional canvas, Armitage paints on Lubugo bark cloth from Uganda, using its natural holes and rough textures to inform his ‘hallucinatory’ compositions. His work synthesizes East African news, Greek mythology, and global art history to address heavy themes like political repression and the perilous journeys of migrants with a lush, vibrant palette.

On the second floor, Amar Kanwar presents two significant multimedia installations that function as poetic meditations on power and justice. His landmark work, The Torn First Pages, documents the struggle for democracy in Myanmar, honoring a bookseller’s protest against military censorship. In contrast, his 2023 piece, The Peacock’s Graveyard, uses seven ‘invisible’ screens and a haunting piano raga to tell five metaphysical fables about death, karma, and the cycle of life.