A new exhibition dedicated to David Salle at the Galleria di Palazzo Cini in Venice
In Venice, contemporary painting enters into dialogue with artificial intelligence in the new exhibition dedicated to David Salle, one of the most influential artists on the international scene. Hosted at the Galleria di Palazzo Cini until September 27, 2026, the exhibition presents a series of new works in which art, technology, and visual research merge into an entirely new language.
The exhibition, titled Painting in the Present Tense, marks the American artist’s first solo show in Venice and has been organized alongside the 2026 Venice Biennale. Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero and supported by the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, the exhibition offers visitors an immersion into the latest evolution of David Salle’s painting, long characterized by the layering of images, time periods, and meanings.
Exhibition Painting in the Present Tense, Palazzo Cini. Photo Celestia Studio
David Salle’s painting between art and artificial intelligence
At the center of the Venice exhibition is the relationship between painting and artificial intelligence. David Salle developed a customized AI system trained on materials from his own visual archive. The artist uses technology not as a substitute for the creative gesture, but as a tool capable of generating new compositional possibilities and destabilizing his own pictorial language.
The works begin with images processed by algorithms and are then manually reinterpreted by the artist through painting. The result is a layered surface where digital elements, visual memory, and human intervention coexist. In this process, artificial intelligence becomes a sort of creative interlocutor, capable of suggesting unexpected associations and new ways of constructing images.
According to Salle, the goal is not to delegate artistic creation to the machine, but to understand how technology can expand the possibilities of contemporary painting. The artist describes AI as a “destabilizing force” capable of challenging habits and conventions within his own artistic practice.
The works on display in Venice
The works exhibited at the Galleria di Palazzo Cini were created between 2022 and 2026 and are based on David Salle’s famous Tapestry Paintings, produced between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Those images, already characterized by strong historical and iconographic layering, are now reinterpreted through digital generative processes.
The artist uses UV prints on linen canvas as a starting point, later intervening directly with brushstrokes, vivid colors, and newly painted imagery. Historical figures, advertising fragments, still lifes, and decorative details coexist within the same pictorial space, creating dense and simultaneous compositions.
Painting thus becomes a place where different eras intersect: the past of art history engages with the present of technology and the contemporary sensibility of the artist. Venice, a city historically linked to the relationship between tradition and artistic innovation, becomes the ideal setting for this reflection.
David Salle, Workplace (Oil, acrylic, Flashe, and charcoal on UV print on linen, 182,9x236,2 cm) © David Salle / ARS New York. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery. Photo John Berens.
David Salle, Mime (2026; Oil, acrylic, Flashe, and charcoal
on UV print on linen 182,9x236,2 x 3,8 cm) © David Salle / ARS New York.
Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery. Photo John Berens
An exhibition reflecting on the future of art
The Venetian exhibition also addresses one of the key questions of our time: what will the role of the artist be in the age of artificial intelligence? David Salle answers through painting itself, presenting it as an open, flexible, and deeply human space.
The artist chooses to appropriate a dominant technology in order to transform it into a critical instrument. Rather than passively accepting the automated production of images, Salle uses artificial intelligence to question the meaning of art and return creative control to the hands of the artist.
In this sense, the exhibition is not merely a technological experiment, but also a reflection on the present and future of painting and artistic creation. The works on display demonstrate how dialogue between humans and machines can generate new expressive possibilities without erasing the value of the human gesture.
Salle’s work forms part of a wider debate about how artificial intelligence is transforming the future of art, authorship and creativity.
Who is David Salle
Born in Oklahoma in 1952, David Salle is considered one of the leading figures in international contemporary art. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, where he was a student of conceptual artist John Baldessari. Salle became internationally known in the 1980s as a major figure of the Pictures Generation and American Postmodernism.
Throughout his career, his works have been exhibited in some of the world’s most important museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Castello di Rivoli. Beyond painting, Salle has also worked in theater, dance, and cinema, collaborating with major cultural institutions.
With this exhibition in Venice, David Salle once again confirms his ability to reinvent the language of contemporary painting, exploring the relationship between art and technology while preserving the deeply human dimension of artistic creation.
David Salle, Yellow Shawl (2025-26 Oil, acrylic, Flashe, and charcoal on UV print on linen, 152,4x195,6 cm) © David Salle / ARS New York. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery. Photo John Berens.
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