Sally J. Han in La Nota Mancante at Fondazione Maddalena Di Giacomo, Venice

Inaugural Exhibition — Fondazione Maddalena Di Giacomo Vernissage by invitation May 21, 2026 — Palazzo Valier, Venice

Opening on May 21, 2026, the Fondazione Maddalena Di Giacomo inaugurates its programme with La Nota Mancante, an exhibition conceived as a meditation on memory and on the subtle sensory traces through which memory continues to inhabit the present.

Memory rarely survives as a complete image; rather, it returns in fragments through atmospheres, sensations, and fleeting impressions that resist language. A scent remembered but impossible to name, a sound that lingers in the mind, the emotional residue of a gesture or a face: La Nota Mancante begins from this condition, from the awareness that what is missing often resonates more deeply than what is fully present.

Since the earliest civilizations, art has offered humanity a subtle passage beyond the visible world, a kind of secret threshold, not unlike the elusive elixirs once pursued by alchemists. Through it, we momentarily step outside the confines of ordinary perception and enter a dimension where memory, imagination, and sensation intertwine, where absence itself may acquire form and resonance. In this sense, art is never merely ornament or diversion; it is a quiet companion in the human search for meaning, a balm for the restless spirit, and an invitation to cultivate a deeper attentiveness to the invisible textures of experience.