In 2004, the Michela Rizzo Gallery opened in a small exhibition space in Venice, with the aim of revitalising the contemporary art scene in a city where there was a need for galleries that were not exclusively commercial. At the beginning of 2008, the gallery moved to a larger and more evocative setting on the first floor of Palazzo Palumbo Fossati, a 16th-century Venetian building, where it remained until 2014. In 2013, a second location opened on the ground floor of an industrial building in the former brewery area of Giudecca. In November 2025, Palazzo Palumbo Fossati once again became the gallery's main location, while the space on Giudecca remained operational until its closure in mid-January 2026. In October 2025, Michela Rizzo also inaugurated the Galleria Frittelli Rizzo in Milan, shared with her colleague Simone Frittelli, owner of the Frittelli Arte gallery in Florence.

Over the years, Galleria Michela Rizzo produces a high-profile programme through in-home exhibitions, partnerships with major local and foreign museums and institutions, and collaborations with historical, established, and emerging artists. The strength of Galleria Michela Rizzo lies in the synergy between Venetian roots and international connections, and its mission is to constantly raise the bar in the Italian cultural offer, providing a platform for artists who question the great topics of our time.

The relevance of history, the contemporary political and social scenarios and the relationship between people and their environment emerge in the practices of such major artists as Fabio Mauri, León Ferrari, Hamish Fulton, Nanni Balestrini, Antoni Muntadas, Vito Acconci, Roman Opalka, Brian Eno, Barry X Ball, and David Tremlett.

Time and its meaning, the value of slowness and reflection, the relation with space, nature, and landscape are some of the themes examined by Francesco Jodice, David Rickard, Michael Hoepfner, Antonio Rovaldi, Mariateresa Sartori, Andrea Mastrovito, Kateřina Šedá, Giorgia Fincato, Federico De Leonardis, Marcela Cernadas, Aldo Runfola, Maurizio Pellegrin and Silvano Tessarollo.

New technologies are explored by our younger artists such as Alessandro Sambini, Ryts Monet and Matthew Attard, who question the contemporary overproduction of images and information, and their consequent overconsumption.

Finally, the artists working with painting include Riccardo Guarneri, Saverio Rampin and Lucio Pozzi.

Among the most relevant exhibitions in collaboration with museums and institutions, it is worth mentioning Isole by Maurizio Pellegrin (2005), a site-specific project for eight Venetian museums; Lawrence Carroll at Museo Correr (2008, Venice); Tony Cragg at Ca’ Pesaro, - International Gallery of Modern Art (2010, Venice); Barry X Ball at Ca' Rezzonico (2011, Venice). In 2017, Galleria Michela Rizzo collaborated with the Municipality of Pisa, through a cycle of exhibitions inside the medieval church Santa Maria della Spina with site-specific installations by Wolfgang Laib (Somewhere Else) and Richard Nonas (... as light trough fog ...).