Amoako Boafo: It doesn’t have to always make sense

At Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Amoako Boafo presents ‘It doesn’t have to always make sense’, his first solo exhibition in Italy, introducing a new body of paintings that reengage portraiture through the lens of Black identity and Venetian art history. Produced by Gagosian, the exhibition positions Boafo’s tactile, finger-painted figures within the richly layered architecture of the Renaissance palazzo. Conceived in direct response to its setting, the project establishes a dialogue between contemporary painting and the decorative language of Venice.

Boafo draws on damask patterns, Burano lace, and textile traditions, reinterpreting them through Ghanaian color palettes and material experimentation. His portraits, often depicting friends, loved ones, and himself, assert presence and individuality, while simultaneously embedding new narratives into a historically Eurocentric visual canon. Extending beyond painting, the exhibition unfolds as an immersive environment where wallpaper, video, and poetic elements contribute to a ‘total ecosystem’ of representation. Within this spatial composition, Boafo reframes the relationship between subject, surface, and site, transforming Palazzo Grimani into a space where past and present, identity and history, intersect.