Tomorrow, yesterday and tomorrow

The third year of Panorama opens with Tomorrow, yesterday and tomorrow, a solo exhibition by Maurizio Segato. In a recursive interplay of memory and fiction, the artist reinterprets the space’s past use as a souvenir shop in Campiello San Zulian. The exhibition features sculptures that reference objects and traditions from various origins, which have either disappeared from the city or are on the verge of doing so. The storefront thus becomes an active archive, where the act of remembering – understood as a process of continuous rewriting – manages to raise new questions about Venice and the public and private lives of those who pass through it. Original objects, copies, and reproductions are blurred within the space, creating a short circuit in the system of shops and window displays that dominates the sestiere. Investigating Panorama’s history also allows the artist to build a relationship with his own family’s past. In a further layer of overlay, the souvenir shop recreated by Segato inside the space harks back to the now-disappeared framing and wallpaper shop that belonged to a branch of his family in Corte Perini. Elements from the shop’s archive are reinterpreted and copied in an attempt to create a physical relationship between the fake and the memory, between individual and family memory. Special thanks to Marta Barina and Mare Karina, Tiziano Signorato, Andrea Segato, and Alessandro Visentin.