VOENA Lens
One gallery, many ways of seeing.
An exhibition is an argument before it is an installation, and the person making the argument matters as much as the works that carry it. VOENA LENS is an invitation to curators, designers and others who think visually to make that argument in our rooms, and every exhibition in the series carries the name of whoever conceived it, as VOENA LENS × [Curator].
All art was contemporary when it was made, and our programme has long set Italian old masters and modern painting beside work of the present day on the understanding that the conversation runs in both directions. What is new is that we are opening it to people outside the gallery.
Who we are asking
Curators, interior designers, architects and anyone else whose work is a way of looking. We are not reading for a title, and a first exhibition interests us as much as a twentieth. What we are reading for is an idea strong enough to hold a room.
What we are asking for
A theme, a dialogue between artists or periods or disciplines, a rereading of a familiar episode in art history, or the case for an artist who has gone unlooked at. The period is open, from the Renaissance to work made this year. Italian art and its reach across time sit at the centre of what we do, and the proposals that tend to go furthest engage with that in some way, whether by extending it or by arguing with it, so it is worth looking at our current and past exhibitions before you write.
How it works
You send us the concept, with a note on where you see it sitting within our programme. We will read everything that comes in, weighing three things: the strength of the idea, whether the works can realistically be brought together, and how it would sit in the year. If we take a proposal forward we build it with you, from the research and the loans through to the installation and the publication, and it is shown under your name alongside ours.
Bring us your lens
Tell us about your concept below. We read every proposal and will be in touch if we would like to take it further.