Alessia De Micheli
In the rooms of Palazzo Pisani Revedin, beyond book’s cover proposes a reflection on the way we look at, read and interpret the world around us, taking the form of the artist’s book as its starting point.
In Venice, art invites us to suspend judgment. From November 5 to 17, in the rooms of Palazzo Pisani Revedin, «beyond book’s cover» proposes a reflection on the way we look at, read, and interpret the world around us, taking the form of the artist’s book as its starting point. Organized by AT Colección and curated by Antonio Toca, the exhibition brings together works by 45 artists from 12 countries: Argentina, Cuba, France, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Venezuela. The exhibition coincides with the final weeks of the 2026 Biennale Arte (November 22).
At the heart of the project is the idea of the cover as a threshold rather than a limit: a space that introduces us to what we do not yet know and challenges the labels assigned to books, images, and people. In a society dominated by speed, an excess of images, and the tendency toward immediate judgment, the exhibition offers a pause, inviting visitors to take time to engage with the works, embrace uncertainty, and question their own mechanisms of interpretation.
The artist’s book thus becomes the starting point for a broader reflection on the perception of reality and otherness. Difference, fragility, and marginality are removed from their peripheral position to become potential sites of knowledge and new forms of sensitivity.
The project also continues beyond the exhibition's closing. During the exhibition, visitors will be able to leave their mark on the cardboard furnishings that make up the space, gradually transforming them into a collective diary. At the end, the furnishings will be dismantled, folded, and preserved to become a large artist’s book destined for the AT Colección collection. Sustainability thus becomes an integral part of the project: an ephemeral event is transformed into shared memory, extending the life of the exhibition through the contributions of those who have experienced it.
Rather than offering answers, «beyond book’s cover» opens up a conversation about the way we look and judge, and about the role of art in challenging the categories through which we interpret a world undergoing profound technological and social transformations.
