In the labyrinthine calm of Calle Larga XXII Marzo, just steps from St. Mark’s Square, Venice’s Contini Art Gallery is hosting a transformative dialogue between artist and audience. Until November 22, 2026, coinciding with the 61st Venice Biennale, Italian – American sculptor Lorenzo Quinn unveils I Give you My Heart.
Following a triumphant winter season in Cortina d’Ampezzo, the exhibition arrives with previously unseen works—renewed in both form and meaning. Perfectly attuned to the Biennale’s overarching theme, In Minor Keys, the show offers a deeply sensory, meditative exploration of intimacy, memory, and resistance—an invitation to listen more attentively to the nuances of human relationships. “Art is definitely a calling,” Quinn reflects. “People ask me, ‘How did you start out?’ A work of art is a dream. I mean, it’s a materialized dream.” That dreamlike genesis is deeply personal.
Quinn describes inspiration as a sudden, almost involuntary spark: “I’m going about my things, or I’m reading a book, or I’m speaking to people, and somebody says a phrase that catches my attention—and in my mind, there it is, it pops.” This intuitive process has driven Quinn for decades. Yet he pinpoints a specific turning point: the 2017 installation of Support—the now-iconic image of a child’s hands emerging from the Grand Canal to brace the façade of Ca’ Sagredo. “There was probably a before Support,” he says, “and there was an after. After that created an even bigger responsibility.”
That sense of responsibility has only deepened. Quinn’s celebrated hands—symbols of creation, help, and unity—return as central protagonists in I Give You My Heart. The work echoes his 2019 Arsenale and 2023 Vieste installation Building Bridges, which depicted six pairs of hands representing friendship, wisdom, help, faith, hope, and love. “I want to transmit hope,” Quinn says. “There’s a lot of hate out there, and I want to spread love. That’s the only way to fight hate.” The exhibition’s timing amplifies this urgency.
In an era marked by global fragility and transformation, Quinn’s work “invites us to overcome barriers, encourage mutual understanding and harmony,” calling for “shared responsibility and collective commitment toward the community and the planet.” For the artist, this is not abstract idealism. It is a daily metric of success.
“They say an image is worth a thousand words. So if I’m able to affect anybody through my artwork, that’s a good day’s work.” Quinn’s sculptures—crafted from bronze, stainless steel, wood, resin, and acrylic—are designed not merely to be seen but to be felt. “Years ago, I decided that I wanted my art to do more than just decorate halls and outdoor spaces and people’s homes.
I wanted them to express messages. I want to transmit emotions, to have a conversation, a dialogue with people.” That conversation, he hopes, becomes deeply personal. “I like when my art becomes quite personal to people.” Yet success brings its own creative tensions. Quinn admits to a certain internal pressure: “You feel that you have to do more and more and more, bigger and bigger and bigger.
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At times I need to slap myself and realize that’s not the objective. The objective is to do better and better and better.” The creative process itself, he explains, is oceanic. “It comes in waves. Sometimes you’re very creative. There’s something emotionally happening in you, stirring inside, that you want to reveal to the world.”
In I Give You My Heart, those waves have yielded a rich harvest. The exhibition traces Quinn’s stylistic evolution across materials, each chosen to give concrete form to abstract feelings. The result, according to the gallery, is “an intense and engaging dialogue in which the sculptural gesture becomes a universal language.” As the Biennale invites the world to listen in minor keys, Quinn offers a major key response: a call to unity, a celebration of heritage, and a steadfast belief in art’s power to improve life. “I’m attracted to natural beauty,” he says, “but of course I’m so fond of what humanity has been able to create over the years. The heritage that we’ve left—these incredible beautiful cities and monuments—it’s just incredible.” He pauses, then adds simply: “I think art makes life better.”
Credits: Photo courtesy of Lorenzo Quinn, Contini Art Gallery
Exhibition Details:
I GIVE YOU MY HEART, solo exhibition by Lorenzo Quinn
Contini Art Gallery, Calle Larga XXII Marzo, San Marco 2414, Venice
Until November 22, 2026
Daily, 10:30 am – 1:00 pm / 2:00 pm – 7:30 pm
