Exhibitions
Jannis Kounellis and the wandering memory of the Mediterranean with Labyrinth without walls
An exhibition that reveals the poetic bond between the artist and the sea, through sails, fragments of boats and the symbolic force of Arte Povera.
Kounellis was born in Piraeus, Greece, in 1936, and from a very young age he resided in Rome. He is one of the leading figures of Arte Povera, a movement coined by the Italian critic Germano Celant during the 1960s. His presence on the contemporary scene has become canonical, as he is one of the few masters who has continued to work in the avant-garde, contributing new forms of knowledge and understanding of the human spirit, with a force capable of transforming ways of thinking and reformulating them throughout historical development.
Labyrinth without walls is the new temporary exhibition at Es Baluard in Palma, an exhibition with work by Jannis Kounellis curated by David Barro and which can be seen from December 4 to August 30, 2026. It offers for the first time a privileged look at the deep bond that unites Kounellis with the Mediterranean Sea.
Jannis Kounellis, Untitled, 2013. Collection r/e. © of the work, Jannis Kounellis, VEGAP, Balearic Islands, 2025. Photograph: Collection r/e. Stefan Müller.
The project brings together Venetian sails, fragments of boats and pieces created from Mallorcan and Italian sails, which establish a subtle dialogue with the idea of displacement as a historical, vital and aesthetic experience. This reading is part of the tradition of Arte Povera, a movement of which Kounellis was an essential figure and which is reactivated here as a murmur that crosses time and geographies.
The exhibition is a co-production with the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea and has the collaboration of KEWENIG, Palma / Berlin, and the Archivio Kounellis. At Es Baluard Museu it can be visited in Espai A and in the CGAC from September 25, 2026 to February 21, 2027, extending like a journey that navigates between shores and seasons.
Jannis Kounellis, Senza titolo (Albatross), 2001. Courtesy of Kewenig. © of the work, Jannis Kounellis, VEGAP, Balearic Islands, 2025. Photograph: Courtesy of Kewenig. Claudio Abete.
An itinerary that invites the viewer to delve into Kounellis' personal experience with Piraeus, the Mediterranean, mythology, origins and cultural borders. The centerpiece of the exhibition is an imposing installation formed by nine Venetian sails arranged in a fan shape. Dating from the 17th century to more recent times, these sails invoke the maritime tradition of the Mediterranean and its merchant culture, while suggesting the disappearance of the poetic dimension of travel in an era marked by industrialization and globalization.
Kounellis develops a perspective in which travel becomes a metaphor for transformation and the construction of meaning. The materials he uses, far from being simple forms, are containers of memory: they reveal how objects retain the marks of their past and make them visible in the present. This attention to material history allows his work to be read as a cross between experience and displacement, a space where cultural legacy is revisited with a critical sensitivity that renews it and keeps it alive.
