Venice‘s newest art gallery, the Museo Vedova, by celebrity architect Renzo Piano has put a 21st century twist on the art of picture hanging.

Dedicated entirely to the work of the Venetian abstract art pioneer Emilio Vedova (1919-2006), paintings at the Museo Vedova don’t hang at all – they float.

Suspended in the air by a fleet of robotic shuttles moving along a track fixed to the ceiling, the paintings glide through the exhibition space at various heights, periodically coming to rest at strategic points under the lights before floating away to a different position.

The paintings are brought out together in series according to their chronological or thematic contexts and then whisked away to a storage space at the back of the museum to be replaced by others.

The public can view the paintings from the floor or from an elevated wooden mezzanine along the wall.

Set to open on June 3 for the 53rd Venice Biennial art exhibition, the Museo Vedova is located in the artist’s former studio, a renovated warehouse at the historic Venetian salt docks.

Explaining how he came by the idea for the museum, Renzo Piano explained, ”the warehouses are narrow and long and so it made sense to imagine that down at the far end, a bit hidden in the shadow, would be the storage facility, and out of this, as if by magic, the works would appear in a certain order. From this came the idea of mobility, whereby it’s not the spectator who goes to the artwork, but the artwork that comes to the spectator”.