Matthias Schaller: Controfacciata

43 Fondamenta Zitelle Venezia

April 5 – November 23, 2025

Casa dei Tre Oci

The Berggruen Institute Europe presents Controfacciata, a new solo exhibition by acclaimed German photographer Matthias Schaller, celebrated for his conceptual and deeply contemplative visual language. Comprising 28 works—many exhibited for the first time—this project turns its gaze to an unexpected subject: the rear façades of Venetian palazzos.
Employing a sophisticated interplay of analog depth and digital precision, Schaller transforms these often-neglected architectural views into luminous compositions, where light, reflection, and silence converge. Far from conventional documentation, these photographs unfold as quiet meditations—visions of a Venice not in decline, but in delicate metamorphosis

Controfacciata reveals a city glimpsed from within: rooms touched by the shimmer of the lagoon, façades turned inward, stories told in absence. Schaller invites us to reconsider the language of space—not as a static memory, but as a living narrative of identity, resilience, and rebirth.
Curated by Mario Codognato, the exhibition offers a poetic counterpoint to familiar images of Venice, and affirms photography’s power to both witness and reimagine the soul of a place.