We Thought We Were Alone, Palazzo Rota Ivancich, Venice (IT), May 6 – 22 NOV 2026

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Koen Vanmechelen presents

We Thought We Were Alone, his first solo sculptural exhibition in Venice, now open to the public at Palazzo Rota Ivancich, coinciding with the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

Curated by James Putnam, the exhibition unfolds across three floors, bringing together more than 40 new works that explore relationships between living organisms and the inorganic environment, where transformation and coexistence emerge beyond fixed hierarchies.

The palazzo itself becomes an active framework for the work. Its layered structure, marked by centuries of repair and reinvention, shapes how the exhibition is experienced. Rather than following a fixed narrative, the spaces shift in tone and logic. Works reappear in different configurations, and meaning evolves through movement and encounter. As Vanmechelen describes it, the building “writes back”.

At the centre of the exhibition is a redistribution of presence. Animals return the viewer’s gaze, not as symbols but as active counterparts, forming what the artist describes as a ‘parliament of animals’. Across the exhibition, roles and positions remain in flux, opening up a space where control, vulnerability and coexistence are continuously renegotiated.

"Vanmechelen’s work goes beyond the idea of interconnected life and engineers conditions in which it becomes visibly unveiled. By staging hybrids, thresholds and fragile systems across the palazzo, he turns a familiar premise into a physical experience: a continuous negotiation between form and transformation."

James Putnam, curator

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Materials including bronze, marble, glass, photography and video operate as interconnected systems rather than isolated objects. Sculpture is not treated as fixed, but as something shaped by placement, context and relation. Classical references reappear through hybrid forms, where human, animal and symbolic elements merge and transform.

"For centuries we thought we were alone. We imagined ourselves at the centre of all things—the measure of progress, the author of peace, the keeper of paradise and the pinnacle of evolution. As the exhibition unfolds, the animals reveal themselves, not as metaphors or relics, but as messengers of a different truth. In their gaze, we confront the price of our domestication—how we tamed the world and, in doing so, lost our own wildness. This is not nostalgia for a lost Eden, but a confrontation with the limits of human exceptionalism. Nature does not need our pity, only our willingness to coexist. The minor key of survival is not conquest, but reciprocity and hybridity."

Koen Vanmechelen, artist

Recurring motifs such as the egg introduce a sense of openness and uncertainty, suggesting that what emerges is never fully predetermined. In I Never Lost Paradise, a monumental Venetian chandelier becomes a structure of tension and transformation, where light, material and form shift away from fixed meaning.

A dedicated room presents Wild Gene Festival, a collaboration with musician Youssou N’Dour. Through video and installation, the project brings together music, gesture and collective creation, reflecting the exhibition’s broader focus on connection and shared experience.