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Palazzo Grassi
Stepping into the world of Tatiana Trouvé (born in 1968) means entering her “magical mind,” tracing the contours of her unconscious, embracing her singular imagination. In Venice, the Franco-Italian artist has completely transformed the majestic spaces of the Palazzo Grassi into a treasure box of dreams, on view through January 4, 2026.
Across the building’s 5,000 square meters, she has pierced some walls and sealed off others, radically altering the visitor’s path. Trouvé tells her story—or rather, whispers it—in subtle gestures: through her monumental compositions (entirely drawings), her sculptures and trompe-l’œil installations of seemingly mundane objects (which she calls “Guardians”), as well as a re-creation of her studio.
Supernatural
When interviewed, she speaks in a quiet voice, with a faintly dragging cadence, as she reveals the roots of her creative drive, which lie unexpectedly in Africa. Until the age of 16, she lived in Senegal, where her father taught architecture. It was there she first encountered the captivating tales of traveling griots who spun stories of the supernatural. (See here and here an other report about Tatiana Trouvé)
Today, Trouvé is best known for her maps, or rather utopian cartographies, charting the unchartable. At the Centre Pompidou in 2022, she mounted a stunning solo exhibition titled “Atlas of Disorientation.” At Palazzo Grassi, her approach is different.
James Lingwood
“I don’t know another artist with such a deep sense of experimentation and such technical brilliance,” says an admiring James Lingwood, the British curator of the exhibition, who collaborated with Trouvé on the project for two years.
Her Guardians
Let’s begin with her “Guardians.” Trouvé loves to play, especially in her choice of materials. You might think you’re looking at an ordinary padded vinyl chair, straight out of the 1970s, with a cushion folded in two. But… the label unmasks the illusion. The chair is sculpted from onyx, the cushion from marble.
“I started making the ‘Guardians’ for group shows. It was my way of occupying the space and of observing other people’s work. It’s also a way of acknowledging the presence of museum guards,” says the artist, who is also using these objects to “watch over” the exhibition galleries.
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Bleach and papers
The other major body of work presented in Venice is drawing. But hers has little to do with conventional definitions of works on paper. These large-scale, vividly colored sheets, mounted on canvas, might float freely in the middle of the room. “I like getting lost even more when I work big,” explains Trouvé.
She is fascinated by the transformation of materials. Here, she attacks the paper’s surface with bleach. From the color’s dissolution, forms begin to emerge.
Turbulent atmosphere
Halos, clouds or mountains from which she builds her compositions. These then give rise to forests, architectural fragments, objects. But no humans. Since 2013, she has called these large drawings “les dessouvenus,” which she says comes from a Breton term for those who have lost their memory.
“The use of bleach creates a turbulent atmosphere, over which she draws in pencil different images of a world felt to be in ecological collapse,” observes Lingwood. “They combine indoor and outdoor spaces.”
Like in the now-familiar scenes of natural disaster or war, in which we see homes gutted from the destruction, Trouvé’s drawings expose a devastated intimacy. A premonition?
Through January 4, 2026. www.pinaultcollection.com/palazzograssi/fr
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