July in Venice, between art, fashion, dance, cinema on the water, theatre, foundations, new cultural venues and new communities: contemporary Venice is here.
In our July agenda, the Fashion at Iuav runway show tells the story of the vital energy of the new generation of fashion talent. Venice Open Stage, an open-air theatre festival, offers a look at experimental European companies. Cinema on the water takes you to the Arsenale with Cinema Barch-In, and the exhibition by the artists of the Atelier Bevilacqua La Masa tells the story of Venice as a place of training, research, growth and creative exchange.
The Biennale Danza Time Does Not Exist, directed by Wayne McGregor, questions time with 140 artists, over sixty events, nine world premieres and numerous site-specific productions.
Venice’s creative map presents a city where culture steps outside institutional venues and moves through campos, university spaces and city festivals. Hotels also contribute to the cultural debate, such as The St. Regis Venice, where Komorebi, the exhibition curated by Marta Cereda, is open to the public.
Venice’s art spaces where artists grow are free-entry places where you can work, have a coffee, breathe—such as the Procuratie in Piazza San Marco, the Androne at Ca’ Pesaro and the colourful spaces of Scuola Piccola Zattere.
The Fondazione Dries Van Noten, the major new addition of 2026, celebrates craftsmanship at Palazzo Pisani Moretta as the language of cultural identity. Here you can discover over fifty artists from around the world, Venetian artisans and designers, and then sit and watch the Grand Canal.
The July agenda
1. Venice Open Stage, Nervi Scoperti
The 14th edition of the open-air theatre festival Venice Open Stage brings emerging contemporary theatre to Campo San Sebastiano, with international academies of dramatic art and performance art.
Nervi Scoperti is organised by the association Cantieri Teatrali Veneziani and weaves together international theatre training, emerging companies, new stage languages and performance poetry, alongside moments of meeting the public at aperitivo time and an internship programme for young people.
Venice Open Stage, Nervi Scoperti, until 11 July.
Campo San Sebastiano. INFO
2. Fashion at Iuav 2026, the Graduation Show on the future of fashion in Venice
Fashion at Iuav returns, the graduation show presenting the collections by graduating students from the Fashion degree programmes at Università Iuav di Venezia. In the year of the university’s centenary, the runway show will take place on Friday 3 July at 8:30 PM in the spaces of the newly renovated Terese.
The Graduation Show is the moment when the research and design journey developed during studies meets the public. With the fashion degree programmes at Università Iuav, Venice is a place where contemporary fashion is designed, in dialogue with the Biennale, artisans, cultural foundations and creative workshops that make the city an international reference point for research and education.
And Iuav MA Fashion Community, the new community of fashion students, is the fashion observatory born in Venice.
Read all the details in the article Fashion at Iuav, fashion in Venice.
Fashion at Iuav 2026, Friday 3 July, 8:30 PM, the Terese.
The event is by invitation, and will be live-streamed.
3. L’una nell’altra, exhibition by Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa
From 9 July, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa presents L’una nell’altra, an exhibition curated by Giovanni Giacomo Paolin, at the Sala del Camino in the SS. Cosma e Damiano complex, on Giudecca.
The exhibition brings together a selection of works recently added to the Foundation’s collection as part of Time after Time, a project conceived by Stefano Coletto to support artists who have had the experience of working in the historic Atelier della Bevilacqua La Masa. The artists—Chiara Calore, Barbara De Vivi, Nebojša Despotović, Giuseppe Di Liberto, Kensuke Koike, Caterina Morigi, Fabio Roncato, Alberto Scodro, Davide Sgambaro, Caterina Erica Shanta and G. Olmo Stuppia—have experienced Venice as a place of training, research, growth and creative exchange.
Among the works on display, Calante by Caterina Erica Shanta addresses the theme of coastal erosion and environmental transformation. Sposare la notte, Controcartolina Venezia by G. Olmo Stuppia reflects on a marginal, nocturnal Venice. The dimension of the body and memory emerges in the video performance A volte è strana la vita (Marcia funebre neomelodica) by Giuseppe Di Liberto.
L’una nell’altra
Talk and opening
Thursday 9 July, 6:30 PM
With Lisa Andreani, Chiara Carrera, Ginevra Ludovici and Tommaso Speretta, together with the artists.
L’una nell’altra, Atelier of Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Giudecca.
From 9 July to 16 August, Wednesday to Sunday, 12–6 PM, free entry
INFO
4. Cinema Barch-In. At the water’s edge
Cinema Barch-In returns to Venice from 10 to 13 July, the first drive-in by boat, born in Venice in 2020. In the Arsenale basin, the ancient naval shipyard of the Serenissima, spectators’ boats moor to watch films, documentaries and music on the water.
The programme is curated by Les FEMS du Cinéma and is the result of collaboration with various local organisations committed to the life of Venice. It is an opportunity to experience cinema in a Venetian way, with an aperitivo on board and a programme designed to meet, watch and listen to the city at the water’s edge.
Much anticipated, the Aperiporto will light up each evening with debates, music and screenings. On two evenings we will have the chance to see again the beautiful Boreana, a film by Venetians Emanuel Toffolo and Jordan Carraro dedicated to the amphibious life of the island of Burano.
Le Città di Pianura comes to Barch-In
Sunday 12 July at 8:30 PM the author’s video introduction to the film will be enriched by the presence of the local crew and the film’s crew members.
The programme
10 July: Song of the Sea. La canzone del mare
11 July: Titanic, remastered 4K UHD
12 July: Le città di pianura
13 July: Pomi d’ottone e manici di scopa
Booking, access times and how to take part by boat, hosted on boats by the rowing associations and on land, are on the website of Cinema Barch-In. The screenings are free.
Cinema Barch-In
From 10 to 13 July, Arsenale
INFO
5. Time Does Not Exist, Biennale Danza 2026
Biennale Danza 2026, the 20th edition of the International Festival of Contemporary Dance directed by Wayne McGregor, takes as its guiding thread the theories of physicist Carlo Rovelli on the non-linear nature of time. The programme brings together 140 artists across more than sixty events.
For the Festival’s 20th anniversary, the exhibition Life Lines, created with the Biennale Historical Archive ASAC, retraces its history.
Alongside the programme, Biennale College Danza maintains the Biennale’s educational role. Through calls and intensive pathways, young dancers, choreographers and artists work alongside masters and international artistic directors, culminating in performances and performative actions within the festivals.
Biennale Danza, Time Does Not Exist
From 17 July to 1 August.
INFO
6. Giuseppe Di Liberto’s exhibition at Ca’ Pesaro
Giuseppe Di Liberto. Per sempre, fino alla fine, Project Room, Ca’ Pesaro. Site-specific installation, part of the Polifonie italiane series.
The Project Room can also be accessed without a museum ticket, like the bar on the Grand Canal and the Androne, a majestic and eclectic space that has become—thanks to meetings and jazz concerts—one of the city’s most interesting cultural gathering places.
Giuseppe Di Liberto. Per sempre, fino alla fine
Until 6 September
Ca’ Pesaro, Project Room
All the exhibition info is in the article Giuseppe Di Liberto, per sempre fino alla fine.
7. Summer at the Procuratie in Piazza San Marco, the home of The Human Safety Net
The Procuratie in Piazza San Marco are a free-entry place where you can work, meet friends, have a coffee and see exhibitions such as A World of Potential and We Rise by Lifting Others by Marinella Senatore.
Procuratie in Piazza San Marco
The Human Safety Net
Summer hours 10 AM–7 PM, last entry 6:10 PM, closed Tuesdays
All the info is in the article A museum open to everyone, the Procuratie with the interactive A World of Potential route, the exhibitions and the Foundation’s spaces.
8. Fondazione Dries Van Noten
Among the cultural highlights of 2026, Fondazione Dries Van Noten presents The Only True Protest Is Beauty at Palazzo Pisani Moretta: craftsmanship as the language of cultural identity.
After the works by over fifty international artists, the visit reaches the ground-floor Portego, where the large sculpture by Peter Buggenhout engages in dialogue with the historic architecture and the breeze of the Grand Canal.
In the Magazzino, books, objects, the Foundation’s editions, the official exhibition catalogue, and works by artisans and emerging creatives from Venice and beyond.
Fondazione Dries Van Noten
Palazzo Pisani Moretta
Visiting hours 11 AM–5 PM, entry with the Become a Friend programme
Magazzino 10 AM–6:15 PM
Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays
The full story is in the article Fondazione Dries Van Noten at Palazzo Pisani Moretta.
9. Scuola Piccola Zattere
With the symposium Museum as Carrier Bag: practices for a living museum, Scuola Piccola Zattere proposes conceiving the museum as a space in transformation. The event is part of the public programme The Museum in Draft: Provisional Formats for Multispecies Mediation, curated by Lisa Andreani, where modes of access and knowledge transmission become elements of experimentation to imagine new possibilities of coexistence.
Scuola Piccola Zattere is a non-profit foundation dedicated to research, education and contemporary arts. A space open to the city, it makes its spaces available for study, meeting and rehearsal activities, working and offering opportunities for growth with artists, curators, students and artistic communities who live, study and work in Venice.
Alongside exhibition, performance and research activities is the gastronomic project of ABC Zattere, where dishes are narrative gestures and food is language, encounter and cultural action.
Scuola Piccola Zattere
11 AM–7 PM, closed Tuesdays
Dorsoduro 1401
INFO
10. Where Light Finds Form: Komorebi, The St. Regis Venice
Hotels also contribute to the city’s cultural debate, becoming a widespread network of exhibition spaces and opening up new ways of meeting between art, hospitality and place. At The St. Regis Venice, until April 2027, you can visit Komorebi, an exhibition curated by Marta Cereda dedicated to the interaction between light, shadow, glass and the perception of space. The project runs through the hotel’s interiors with interventions by Marco De Sanctis, Nina Carini, Joan Jonas, Jure Kastelic, Gaia De Megni and Marinella Senatore.
Among the participants, the international performance art icon Joan Jonas exhibits a series of ink drawings on paper at the St. Regis Bar. Marco De Sanctis works on the relationship between light and time through bronze, copper and cyanotype surfaces, marked by chemical and manual processes. Marinella Senatore brings her neon works, gilded collages and a large luminaria to the terrace overlooking the Grand Canal, created in dialogue with Murano glass thanks to the collaboration with Berengo Studio.
Open with free entry, the route confirms the role of hotels as places for new forms of cultural engagement. The visit can end at the Arts Bar, with a cocktail by Ludwig Negri served in designer glasses created for the experience.
Where Light Finds Form: Komorebi
The St. Regis Venice
Until 30 April 2027
INFO
Venice. The July 2026 agenda
- Venice Open Stage, Campo San Sebastiano, until 11 July
- Fashion at Iuav, Terese complex, 3 July, 8:30 PM
- L’una nell’altra, Atelier of Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Giudecca, from 9 July to 16 August
- Cinema Barch-In, Arsenale, from 10 to 13 July
- Time Does Not Exist, Biennale Danza, from 17 July to 1 August
- Per sempre, fino alla fine, Ca’ Pesaro, Project Room, free entry, until 6 September
- Summer at the Procuratie, Piazza San Marco, free entry, summer hours 10 AM–7 PM, last entry 6:10 PM, closed Tuesdays
- Where Light Finds Form: Komorebi, The St. Regis Venice, free entry, until April 2027
- Scuola Piccola Zattere, 11 AM–7 PM, free entry, except Tuesdays
- Fondazione Dries Van Noten, Palazzo Pisani Moretta, visiting hours 11 AM–5 PM. The Magazzino is open 10:00 AM–6:15 PM. Until August, they are closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Article by Laura Scarpa. Photo credits are listed in the captions. Cover: DRIP TEKHNE by Adam Linder, photo by Jubal Battisti, courtesy La Biennale
