Francesco Polenghi and Massimo Micheluzzi: Invisible Breath

Lower Gallery
March 5 - April 30, 2026

Exhibition Catalogue

We're pleased to present the work of Francesco Polenghi and Massimo Micheluzzi, exhibited together for the first time. Living and working in Milan, Polenghi painted while reciting a mantra he learned after spending much of the 1980s living in an ashram in India. Massimo Micheluzzi lives and works in Venice, where he continues the centuries-old tradition of Murano glassblowing. Micheluzzi re-imagines the repetitive patterns of the floors in St. Mark's Basilica and the waves in Venice's canals.

Both artists arrive at a type of hypnotic patterning in their respective mediums, which Barry Schwabsky described as a form of abstraction with "no figure, no ground... just this incessant bustle of matter set in motion by an invisible breath."

“Polenghi remains very much an artist yet to be discovered.”
Barry Schwabsky, Artforum

“My father believed that your time on this planet is not important—it’s about transcending to a higher plane of existence.”
Dara Polenghi

“Massimo's work is really deeply Venetian, well and truly rooted in the history, the shapes, and the forms of this unique city.”
Viretta Micheluzzi

“Those simple, sculptural forms with their deeply ground incisions seemed to me to be closely connected to [Venice] itself. They recalled the patterns made in the water by boats as they move through the canals.”
Barry Friedman