“East Africa meets Western Europe as Michael Armitage takes on Venice's Palazzo Grassi” by Caroline Roux
2026
“It’s a bit like being weighed and measured when you have an exhibition of this scale,” the artist Michael Armitage tells The Art Newspaper, the day before a monographic show of his works opens at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. With 46 large paintings and a room packed with nearly 100 sketches, it surveys the past ten years of his work. “It’s been amazing to take on a space like this, but unnerving—interesting to reflect and jarring to see all the work together.”
Indeed, the Palazzo Grassi is a very grand space, the last gasp of the Venetian Republic, rebuilt in the mid-1700s with soaring staircases, frescoed walls and highly decorated ceilings. Since 2005 it has been in the ownership of François Pinault; previous painters to be shown here (all significantly represented in Pinault’s collection) include Albert Oehlen, Luc Tuymans and Marlene Dumas—respectively 64, 60 and 70 when invited to the palace. At 42 years old, Armitage is young for such a show.
