Hernan Bas: The Visitors

Published  on the occasion of the exhibition Hernan Bas: The Visitors (7 May–30 August 2026) at Ca' Pesaro, International Gallery of Modern Art (Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia). The publication offers insight into the 30 new artworks conceived specifically for the Museum.

Drawing inspiration from Venice, a city uniquely attuned to tourism and continually shaped by its consequences – and also the site of a recent residency undertaken by the artist – Bas created a new body of work featuring tourists in scenarios both imagined and real. These protagonists – predominantly white, western and male – inhabit a shifting terrain of bucket-list attractions, historic sites, sacred spaces, seedy entertainment venues and sanitised examples of the natural world. With the fundamental disconnection between these ‘visitors’ and the worlds they traverse, Bas exposes the absurdity of iconic clichés of tourism such as the Mona Lisa or the Trevi Fountain; dark tourism destinations such as Chernobyl, Alcatraz and the Aokigahara Forest; and tourist traps designed to con, swindle or disappoint.

Texts in English and Italian

Designed by Sonya Dyakova and Archie Anderson 

Special exhibition price £50