A Quiet Retrospective at the Fondazione

The first thing you notice is how little there is to see. Three works in the opening room, generously spaced, each given the kind of breathing room most museums reserve for their most famous holdings. It's a room that takes a minute to read.

This is a show that makes its argument through what it withholds. The curator has resisted the temptation to crowd the walls, and the result is an exhibition that unfolds at the pace of reading rather than looking.

The second room

In the second room, a single sculpture occupies the center, and around it four drawings from the same year are hung at generous intervals. The sculpture is the declarative statement; the drawings are the footnotes, the asides, the thinking out loud.

After half an hour you catch yourself walking more quietly than you usually do in a museum.