Image: Galicia Contemporary Art Center, Santiago de Compostela
‘Jannis Kounellis. Labirinto sen paredes’ will be on view from 25 September 2026 through 24 January 2027. The exhibition is presented on CGAC’s ground floor and in Double Space, with David Barro as curator.
The exhibition is coproduced with Es Baluard Museu, with collaboration from KEWENIG, Palma/Berlin, and Archivio Kounellis. It reflects Kounellis’s childhood in the port of Piraeus and his connection to the sea as a space of cultural exchange and settlement, while describing him as a key figure in Arte Povera.
The exhibition frames Kounellis’s work as a journey through time and as a critical rereading of the past, interpreted in a radically contemporary language.
One installation consists of nine Venetian sails arranged in a fan shape, symbolizing the artist’s connection to the Mediterranean and expressing a critical nostalgia for the transformation of maritime commerce and the disappearance of the individual’s trace in contemporary industry. Other sails are stretched and folded over steel frames; marked by use, they preserve the memory of their former life at sea.
The series ‘Albatros’ comprises broken sections of a wooden boat suspended in front of angled steel plates, evoking wear and memory. Kounellis reflects on the human trace in objects while investigating painting and its possibilities.
