Michael E. Smith

After hosting projects that intertwine architecture, memory and experimentation, Palazzo Bentivoglio announces 'C C', a solo exhibition by Michael E. Smith (Detroit, 1977), one of the most radical and influential American artists of his generation. The exhibition, curated by Simone Menegoi and Tommaso Pasquali, will open to the public on Friday, January 30, 2026 in the underground spaces of the building that Smith, as usual for the artist, will transform into an essential environment full of perceptual tension. \n For over twenty years, Smith's practice has redefined the boundaries of sculpture and installation, moving between minimalism and residue, between absence and presence. His works, made with found materials, industrial waste and recycled objects, give life to installations with a strong emotional impact, in which elements that refer to everyday life appear both fragile and threatening. Each exhibition is conceived as a unique experience, where objects, architecture and light work together, transforming the place into a living body. A process that starts from emptiness, silence and waiting to create a tension that charges every smallest element with meaning. \n Growing up in post-industrial Detroit, Smith translates into the language of sculpture the memory of consumption and abandonment, giving back to the public a restless reflection on the destiny of objects and places, and on their relationship with human time. In this project, his research is confronted with an architectural context full of history: the basement of Palazzo Bentivoglio, a complex weaving of signs and transformations, become a new terrain of exploration for his practice. “After denying the neutrality of the white cube, Smith arrives at a space where historical stratification and material complexity become an unexpected and essential starting point,” explain the curators, underlining how for this exhibition the trigger offered by the place has awakened in the artist a plot of intimate resonances, in which memories of a family story never told before emerge. \n 'C C' marks an important stage in the programming of Palazzo Bentivoglio, which continues to propose new exhibition projects in which artists are invited to establish a direct dialogue with space and its identity. The exhibition catalog, published by CURA, will include a large visual apparatus and critical texts, thus helping to deepen and understand both the work of Michael E. Smith and this new production for Bologna.