ITALIAN PAVILION 2025
Terrae Aquae. Italy and the Intelligence of the Sea
SHIRIN NESHAT’S AIDA
A Contemporary Lens on War, Oppression, and Resistance at the Paris Opera
The Lightness of Being Useful
L’opera
Jago Reimagines Classical Form at the Ancient Theatre of Taormina
N A WORLD WHERE ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND DESIGN INCREASINGLY SERVE AS BRIDGES BETWEEN CULTURES, VISIONS, AND ERAS, THIS NEW ISSUE OF ARCHLOVE INVITES YOU INTO A JOURNEY ACROSS SPACES THAT RETHINK IDENTITY, MEMORY, AND IMAGINATION. WE EXPLORE PROJECTS AND PROTAGONISTS WHO TRANSFORM ENVIRONMENTS INTO EXPERIENCES — AND IDEAS INTO NEW WORLDS.
Our issue opens in Matera, where the Hotel Moyseion redefines hospitality through a poetic dialogue between stone, light, and spirituality. From there, we move to Venice, where the Italian Pavilion at the Biennale confronts the urgencies and possibilities of our time, offering a multidisciplinary reflection on the role of culture in shaping the future.
We then travel across continents geographically and conceptually to meet Molo Design, pioneers in tactile architecture and ephemeral forms, and to Taiwan, where MVRDV’s Nature Rocks project merges landscape, ecology, and architecture in a hymn to geological memory and contemporary resilience.
Art takes center stage as well: from the socially and spiritually charged visions of Michelangelo Pistoletto, to the transcendent installations of Chen Zhen, and the voices of many more who challenge boundaries and redefine the aesthetic and ethical horizons of creation.
The journey culminates in the world of opera, where Shirin Neshat’s visceral interpretation of Aida transforms Verdi’s masterpiece into a cinematic meditation on exile, identity, and belonging proving once again that opera can be as revolutionary as architecture or contemporary art.
This is not just an issue it is an atlas of imagination, a compass for those who believe creativity is a force capable of reshaping the world. From ancient stone to digital vision, from sacred silence to operatic power…
An unmissable issue is coming.
Stay inspired, stay curious stay in love with space.
Raffaele Quattrone
Editor-in-Chief
IN THE HEART OF THE SASSI OF MATERA, WHERE STONE HAS GUARDED THE MEMORY OF LIGHT FOR MILLENNIA, THERE EXISTS A PLACE THAT DOES NOT SIMPLY HOST — IT INHABITS. IT IS CALLED THE MOYΣEION, AND HERE ONE DOES NOT MERELY “STAY.”
One crosses an invisible threshold, entering another dimension a kind of archaeology of the soul, where time bends and the deep breath of Magna Graecia and the ancient peoples of Basilicata can still be felt, long before history had a name
The MOYΣEION is neither museum nor hotel. It is an immersive sensory and spiritual experience, unfolding over nearly a thousand square meters carved into the rock a labyrinth of ancestral spaces and cavities where three Neolithic houses, five Enotrian dwellings, and eight Greek homes have been meticulously reconstructed. Here, architecture becomes both excavation and revelation: an act of recovery that is at once archaeological and emotional.
Every detail feels ritualistic: furniture, fabrics, objects, perfumes, lights, and sounds all recreated through experimental archaeology, not out of nostalgia but as an attempt to reawaken our connection to a symbolic way of living The functional elements of modern life bathrooms, safety systems, climate control remain discreet, hidden, respectful of the sacred stillness that defines the place. The material of time itself seems to demand reverence.
At its heart lies the Water Sanctuary dedicated to Demeter, goddess of fertility and renewal, a figure suspended between visibility and mystery. There, among stone and reflection, visitors understand that the MOYΣEION is above all a temple of experience
a place to once again become guests of the Earth rather than its masters.
Guests are invited to participate in a sequence of ancient rituals, reinterpreted as aesthetic and inner acts: Xenia, the sacred rite of hospitality; The Water Sanctuary ritual, devoted to purification and reflection; The Symposium, a celebration of word, wine, and communion; The Morning Meal, a ritual of daily rebirth. These ceremonies unfold amid music, dance, fragrances, and historically faithful costumes. One dresses as a Greek or an Enotrian but, more profoundly, one undresses from one’s own time. The illusion is not to “relive the past,” but to feel it moving within, like a forgotten language written into our biology.
The MOYΣEION is not a return to the past it is a return to origin. A cultural experiment weaving anthropology, art, and hospitality into a postarchaeological aesthetic device: a living laboratory of embodied memory, where architecture no longer represents history but summons it, making it vibrate like a resonant chord deep inside the visitor.
In an era when travel risks becoming a form of consumption, the MOYΣEION offers its opposite: a slow, initiatory, almost therapeutic experience where staying becomes a form of knowing. One sleeps within stone but also within one’s own depths; one eats as the ancients did, aware that taste itself is a way of thinking; one joins a ritual and rediscovers vulnerability, permeability, humanity.
Perhaps this is the secret of the MOYΣEION to restore to the traveler a sense of the sacred without religion, of wonder without spectacle, of time without calendar It is a place that cannot be visited; it can only be inhabited or allowed to inhabit you. When you leave, you are not quite the same. Perhaps more aware. Perhaps simply quieter. As if something a shadow, a scent, an ancient sound had stirred within you that biological memory of myth which modernity has silenced.
“Live the MOYΣEION,” say its founders, “and you may become a different person. At worst, you’ll have decided to remain the same ” But those who have seen time breathe through the stones of Matera rarely remain the same.
The architectural vision of the MOYΣEION is not about reconstruction but reincarnation. The spaces, entirely contained within the ancient rock dwellings of the Sassi, were restored and expanded with a philosophy of subtraction: removing rather than adding, revealing rather than imposing. Local stone, compacted soil, lime plasters, and pigments drawn from minerals and plants form a tactile and olfactory palette that reconnects the visitor to an archaic material consciousness.
Lighting plays a central role. It is never decorative it is sacred and narrative, sculpting shadows that evoke the flicker of oil lamps, the rhythm of breath, the passage of day into night. The result is a choreography of chiaroscuro that transforms every corridor and alcove into a meditation on time.
The design avoids contrast between ancient and modern. Instead, it pursues a continuity of gesture: contemporary interventions are concealed within the architecture, almost invisible, like veins of light or hidden organs of a living body. The result is an atmosphere that transcends reconstruction a dialogue between myth and minimalism, where the visitor moves through space as if walking through a memory that has just awakened.
In the MOYΣEION, architecture ceases to be a frame for life: it becomes life itself, breathing, resonating, remembering.
At the Tese delle Vergini in the Arsenale of Venice, the Italian Pavilion of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia welcomes visitors with an invitation to change perspective: to look at Italy from the sea Curated by Guendalina Salimei and promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture, the exhibition project Terrae Aquae. Italy and the Intelligence of the Sea (May 10 – November 23, 2025) explores the relationship between land and water, landscape and infrastructure, culture and nature, offering a collective reflection on the transformation of human habitation in an era marked by climate change and new global urgencies.
To look at Italy from the sea means to reverse our gaze and rediscover in the Mediterranean and in the seas that surround it a form of diffuse intelligence capable of connecting knowledge, territories, and communities. The Pavilion presents an expanded Mediterranean, open to neighboring oceans and their routes, as a space of encounter and resilience where architecture, ecology, and culture intertwine in a new design paradigm. Italian coastlines, often wounded or forgotten, once again become places of possibility spaces to be regenerated, reinterpreted, and reconnected where the threshold between land and water no longer separates but unites.
With over six hundred contributions gathered through a Call for Visions and Projects, the Italian Pavilion takes shape as a collective platform bringing together architects, scholars, artists, research institutions, and students The result is a mosaic of experiences in which dialogue between generations and disciplines builds a complex and plural vision of the nation’s coastal future. The exhibition unfolds in three main sections: the Census of the Present, showcasing tangible projects of urban and coastal regeneration; the Gallery, a vast visual map of ideas and reflections conceived as an archive of collective intelligences; and the Research Laboratory, an interactive space where universities and research centers share studies and experiments on the theme of the intelligence of the sea.
The exhibition design, conceived by Guendalina Salimei, physically translates the concept of the threshold. Upon entering, visitors encounter a Bicephalous Wall a large structure made of tubular frames and canvases that cuts through the space like a cliff On one side flow images of Italy seen from the sea, with all its beauty and fragility; on the other, a nineteenth-century-style gallery gathers maps and drawings of an Italy that is possible, visionary, and future-oriented. On the short side of the Tesa, a LED wall projects completed and ongoing projects, while Via Maris, the filmic work by Francesco de Melis, created with the Central Institute for Intangible Heritage, accompanies the viewer on an immersive journey through Italy’s maritime civilization.
In the second Tesa, the Research Pier extends as a long terrace hosting videos, debates, and screenings curated by Istituto Luce Cinecittà; along the walls, photography by Luigi Filetici (Mare Mosso. Mediterranean Report) and Laura Canali’s geopolitical maps convey the complexity of the mare nostrum a sea of conflicts, strategies, and ever-shifting balances.
Bridging the architectural and artistic dimensions are Thomas De Falco and Agnes Questionmark, who expand the theme poetically and symbolically: De Falco presents a textile sculpture in the shape of a dove and the performance The Earth Still Sings with soprano Silvia Colombini, evoking possible harmony between human and natural elements; Questionmark gives mythic form to the sea through Draco Piscis, a hybrid, monumental marine creature visible in the Pavilion via a video
projection showing it emerging from the sea, between light and abyss. Terrae Aquae is not just a representation but a process a living laboratory where design culture engages with ecological and social responsibility. At the heart of the Biennale, the Italian Pavilion stands as a place of listening and convergence, where contemporary creativity opens itself to new forms of cooperation and awareness. In a world marked by environmental and identity crises, Italy offers through architecture a marine way of thinking: fluid, adaptive, and inclusive. A vision that begins along the coasts and extends to the planet, reminding us that the sea is not merely a boundary, but a living intelligence of the future.
At the heart of the Italian Pavilion, amid the deep sounds of the Mediterranean and images that convey its complexity, the video Rethinking the Gaps: The Sea as a Living Archive in Roberto Ghezzi’s Naturografie, curated by Raffaele Quattrone, offers a moment of suspension, a slow breath inviting contemplation. The work is part of the exhibition Terrae Aquae. Italy and the Intelligence of the Sea, curated by Guendalina Salimei, and reflects on the very essence of the boundary no longer a barrier, but a living and permeable threshold between worlds that touch and transform each other. Every wave breaking on the shore, observes Quattrone, is a gap: a point of rupture and rebirth, an incessant writing of the sea on the everchanging body of the land. Within this continuous tension are mirrored the contradictions of the present between tradition and innovation, nature and artifice, rootedness
and migration which the Mediterranean has embodied for millennia as a space of encounters, conflicts, and metamorphoses. The video explores the work of Roberto Ghezzi, a Tuscan artist who for years has investigated the relationship between humans and the environment through his “Naturografie”: works born from direct contact with natural ecosystems, in which nature is not a represented subject but a co-author of the creative process. The canvases, immersed in brackish waters, rivers, or lagoons, become sensitive membranes recording the material memory of the sea: algae, sediments, organic residues, and mineral salts.
Each trace is a fragment of time and transformation, a mark deposited by nature as evidence of its intelligence. On these hybrid surfaces, the artwork becomes a living archive, a tangible document of the dialogue between time, matter, and environment There is no longer a clear distinction between human gesture and natural process: both contribute to constructing a new ecological aesthetic, founded on collaboration and listening. Quattrone interprets the “Naturografie” as a practice of environmental co-creation, where the boundary between art and science, culture and biology, dissolves. The gap, which in Western culture has often represented separation, here becomes a place of mediation, a space where human and natural intelligences meet to generate new forms of knowledge.
The sea, understood as a living archive, preserves and rewrites the memory of changes, inviting a radical rethinking of humanity’s relationship with its environment. The video contribution curated by Quattrone moves between poetic and analytical dimensions, between contemplation and awareness, positioning itself as a curatorial device of thought: an invitation to move beyond the logic of domination toward that of coexistence. Within the exhibition path of Terrae Aquae, Rethinking the Gaps naturally dialogues with the overall theme of the Pavilion the pursuit of a collective intelligence capable of restoring harmony between land and water offering an interpretation that is at once intimate and universal.
In an era marked by environmental crises and a growing sense of separation, Ghezzi’s work, filtered through Quattrone’s sociological and curatorial lens, becomes an act of faith in the possibility of a new balance: an invitation to be traversed by the sea, to recognize it as a living part of our memory and our future.
There are objects that do not occupy space but generate it, that do not impose boundaries but suggest thresholds. The creations of Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen for molo, their Vancouver-based studio, belong to that rare and fragile category of design that resists noise through silence, permanence through movement. Their work unfolds in the delicate territory where design meets art and architecture, where material becomes emotion and structure becomes rhythm
The soft collection, perhaps their most eloquent series, is not a collection of objects but of possibilities flexible walls that breathe, seats that unfold like living organisms, lights that seem to exhale. In a time when design is often called upon to solve problems rather than pose questions, molo reminds us that the deepest function of design is to help us live more consciously in the world.
Their pieces do not aim to fill a void but to reveal it, to accompany the slow choreography of daily life, to respond to the impermanence of what we call home. There is no nostalgia for stability here, only trust in transformation. Theirs is a language of movement, of folds and transitions, where every form can become another, where space is a mutable field shaped by the body’s passage In an era that speaks obsessively of sustainability while still struggling to embody it, molo offers a different kind of responsibility not one of denial, but of adaptability. A wall that bends, a chair that transforms, a room that changes purpose throughout the day: these are not just gestures of design but gestures of awareness, small revolutions in the ethics of living. To embrace flexibility is to acknowledge the shifting nature of existence itself, and to design not against time but with it.
The materials Forsythe and MacAllen use paper, textile, light carry with them the humility of things that can disappear. Their work does not seek immortality; it seeks resonance. The honeycomb structures of the soft collection are 99% air, as if to remind us that what sustains form is not density but breath. In their hands, architecture becomes porous, furniture becomes relational, and the void acquires dignity molo’s process is tactile and cyclical, an endless conversation between mind and material. Ideas pass through the hands, through the resistance and fragility of matter, returning transformed. It is a process of attention, of slowness, of discovery through doing. Collaboration, improvisation, and the acceptance of chance are integral to this approach a counterpoint to the rigid perfectionism that often dominates contemporary design. This openness allows for what might be called design as listening: to the material, to the user, to the evolving rhythm of spaces.
Their work reminds us that true sustainability lies not only in the materials we choose but in the way we imagine their lifespan. A flexible wall can last longer than a fixed one because it can adapt. A lightweight structure consumes less energy because it moves with need, not against it. This is not a lesson in ecology alone, but in empathy. In this sense, molo’s pieces are not objects of desire but tools for presence instruments that help us inhabit space more consciously, without domination or excess. They invite us to participate in the shaping of our surroundings, to find balance between permanence and change, solitude and community, silence and light.
Forsythe and MacAllen’s practice is born from architecture but transcends it, seeking that elusive point where the smallest gesture can alter the perception of the infinite. Their designs are, at once, shelters and breaths. They build through absence, they define through fluidity, they resist through gentleness. Perhaps that is why their work feels so timely now: because it speaks softly in an age of noise, because it trusts in the intelligence of the ephemeral, because it restores meaning to the act of creating without consuming. In the quiet expansion of a softwall, in the slow unfolding of a paper seat, there is an idea of the world we could still become one that values adaptability over accumulation, sensitivity over spectacle, and the invisible harmony between people, materials, and air.
MVRDV BRINGS ROCK-INSPIRED TOURISM INFRASTRUCTURE TO TAIWAN’S JIALESHUI
COASTLINE
The Pingtung County Government has selected a visionary proposal from MVRDV in collaboration with HWC Architects to transform Jialeshui, one of Taiwan’s most iconic scenic areas, into a model of sustainable coastal tourism. Known for its extraordinary sandstone formations sculpted by millennia of wind and sea, Jialeshui is set to receive new infrastructure that strengthens visitor experience while preserving the region’s natural beauty
The project, titled Nature Rocks, draws inspiration directly from the site’s geological identity. A comprehensive masterplan introduces pathways, public spaces, and small-scale buildings including a central visitor centre and three lookout points carefully integrated within the existing built footprint. The goal is to enhance accessibility and tourism amenities without disrupting the delicate coastal landscape.
Located in southern Taiwan within Kenting National Park, Jialeshui is remarkable for its untouched natural scenery. Over thousands of years, wind and waves have sculpted soft sandstone into iconic rock formations some resembling animals, earning names like Rabbit Rock, Toad Rock, and Seal Rock. Despite its popularity, tourism infrastructure has remained limited: a single narrow road currently separates the forest from the rocky shoreline, shared by shuttle buses, pedestrians, and cyclists. Existing pavilions and kiosks have been repeatedly damaged by typhoons and seawater.
MVRDV’s design proposes a sensitive, rock-inspired intervention that blurs the boundary between nature and infrastructure. “What you see today at Jialeshui shows a clear boundary between the natural and the artificial; in turn, this artificial trail separates nature from itself, separating forest from coastline,” says Winy Maas, founding partner of MVRDV.
“In our design, the artificial elements take the shape of the surrounding nature, like natural extensions of the site rather than foreign objects. Our goal was never to impose architecture on the landscape, but to let it emerge from the natural conditions… and to emphasise that Nature Rocks!”
The new pathways and recreational zones take cues from the fractured patterns of the coast, transforming the straight, linear road into a series of rock-like fragments that create circulation paths, gathering spaces, and building volumes. Some fragments rise into pavilions and kiosks, echoing local rock formations and blending seamlessly into the landscape. Resilience and ecological regeneration are central to the design. Cracks in the pavement serve as passive drainage channels, reducing flood and typhoon damage, while supporting biodiversity by allowing vegetation to grow and small animals to move between forest and shore.
Plantings follow a gradient strategy: dense, tall native species near the forest transition to low, salt-tolerant vegetation closer to the sea. Even the concrete surfaces of the buildings are designed to be colonised by moss and small plants over time, creating a living, evolving architecture that harmonises with its surroundings. At the park entrance, three sculptural rock-like buildings welcome visitors The largest contains a visitor centre, café, and souvenir shop; a second hosts exhibitions and environmental education; the third provides restrooms. Roof terraces offer stargazing and panoramic coastal views. The surrounding landscape of plateaus and plazas invites gatherings, markets, and quiet appreciation of the scenery.
Along the coast, the old road is reimagined for pedestrians, cyclists, and shuttles, with designated rest zones and viewpoints at key natural features including the stone deck, sea lookout, and waterfall. Outdated infrastructure is replaced with small, carefully designed structures that complement rather than compete with the environment.
Nature Rocks demonstrates how coastal tourism infrastructure can be upgraded in a sustainable, respectful manner. By letting the natural landscape lead, MVRDV and HWC Architects have created a visitor-friendly, resilient, and ecologically sensitive model for Taiwan’s scenic coastlines enhancing Jialeshui’s identity while preserving the unique qualities that make it one of the country’s most treasured geological parks
Facts
Project Name: Nature Rocks Location: Manzhou Township, Pingtung County, Taiwan
Year: 2025 Client: Pingtung County Government Size and Programme: 140 000 sqm, tourist centre, public spaces, kiosks, road design
Credits
Architect: MVRDV Founding Partner in charge: Winy Maas Director: Gideon Maasland Head of Taiwan: Hui
Hsin Liao Design Team: Valentina Fantini, Samuel Tam, Vivian Yang
Copyright: MVRDV Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, Nathalie de Vries
Collaborators
Co-architect: HWC Architects Structural engineer: Cross Structural Engineer & Associates MEP: LiPeng
Professional Electrical Engineer Firm Surveyor: JengShing Surveying and Mapping Engineering Co , Ltd
Environmental advisor: D H Engineering Consultants Ltd
Michelangelo Pistoletto, a central figure in contemporary Italian art, returns with La Soglia, a solo exhibition celebrating over sixty years of exploring art as a living, participatory experience. Using his signature element the mirror Pistoletto invites viewers to step into the work itself, transforming perception and the relationship between art and life.
The exhibition features both new and recent works, with a focus on pieces created in 2025, marking a significant development in his long-standing project Divisione e moltiplicazione dello specchio – L’arte assume la religione, originally conceived in 1978 with a seminal work and accompanying text. In these new works, Pistoletto investigates the relationship between the real and the virtual, between two-dimensionality and threedimensionality, and the ever-central role of the viewer.
Real objects frames or stretchers in triangular, rectangular, or Segno Arte shapes are applied to mirrors. The perception of these objects shifts according to the observer’s viewpoint, in relation to both their reflection and the surrounding space. The mirror not only visually completes the missing part of the object but also invites deeper contemplation, encouraging self-awareness and reflection on one’s relationship with the environment
The concept begins with the idea that a mirror can reflect everything except itself. By cutting the mirror in two and sliding one half along the axis of division toward the other, the mirror begins to reflect itself and multiply, creating an infinitely expanding perspective. This phenomenon underpins much of Pistoletto’s work, where the principle of division serves as a universal foundation for organic growth and, on a social level, as an alternative logic to accumulation and exclusion.
Alongside these works is the series Black and Light, which introduces a distinct spatial and perceptual approach. Divided mirrors placed in the corners of the room animate the surfaces with shifting reflections of the viewer and the environment, exploring the interplay between brightness and darkness within the mirrored image.
Particularly notable is the San Gimignano installation Uno specchio rotto (2025), where framed mirror fragments are arranged on the wall, partially overlapping, visually recalling the 1981 work Il disegno dello specchio. Whereas the earlier divided mirrors had clean, precise edges, the irregular shapes and fractured edges of the new works evoke an act of breaking and crushing, highlighting the temporal distance between the two works and underscoring the ongoing evolution of Pistoletto’s practice.
La Soglia reaffirms Michelangelo Pistoletto’s unique approach, where mirrors, division, and multiplication are not merely formal devices but conceptual tools that challenge the way we see, participate, and reflect on reality itself.
Michelangelo Pistoletto, Uno specchio rotto, 2025, mirror, wood, gilded frame, variable dimensions, Courtesy: the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA, Photographer: Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio
How do you choose between love for an enemy general and love for one’s homeland? This is the central dilemma of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, first performed in 1871 at the Cairo Opera. The Ethiopian princess, enslaved in Egypt, must navigate her feelings for Radames while contending with the rivalry of Amneris, the Pharaoh’s daughter. Verdi’s score alternates between epic tableaux, such as the famous triumphal march, and intimate arias, including the beloved “Celeste Aida ” Though born from 19thcentury Egyptomania, the opera’s themes of loyalty, love, and sacrifice remain timeless.
For her Paris Opera debut, Iranian visual artist Shirin Neshat offers a staging that reframes Aida through the lens of contemporary political and social realities. Neshat emphasizes the cruelty of religious fanaticism and the oppression of women, drawing parallels to current global struggles.
Reflecting on her approach, Neshat explains: “We have revised Salzburg's Aida from 2022, and incorporated new perspectives that significantly change the program. The core of these alterations concerns the ‘Triumph March,’ in which all the threads of the plot come together. In 2022, the chorus represented the power elite of the Egyptians celebrating their victory. In 2025, we place the nameless victims the Ethiopian slaves at the center They are the victims of war, losing their freedom and ultimately their lives. We want to focus on the violence and brutality of war in the light of current history.”
The production also responds to contemporary debates around gender and identity. Inspired by the Iranian “Woman Life Freedom” movement, Neshat has removed the veiled imagery previously associated with female characters. The Ethiopian women, including Aida herself, are now portrayed as modern women, distinct from the Egyptians, highlighting their agency and individuality.
AIDAAUFESTIVALDESALZBOURG2022©RUTHWALZ
AIDAAUFESTIVALDESALZBOURG2022©RUTHWALZ
AIDAAUFESTIVALDESALZBOURG2022©RUTHWALZ
AIDAAUFESTIVALDESALZBOURG2022©RUTHWALZ
Video projections further amplify this perspective: in Radames’ imagination, a brief desert scene depicts a harmonious union with Aida, while later sequences show Egyptian soldiers invading the Ethiopian world, reducing its people to prisoners and slaves. These visual narratives place the experiences of the Ethiopians their suffering, resilience, and humanity at the heart of the opera.
In Shirin Neshat’s Aida, Paris Opera audiences encounter a work that is both faithful to Verdi’s music and radically contemporary in its vision: a staging that foregrounds the voices of the oppressed, illuminates the cost of war, and reframes the epic story as a meditation on power, resistance, and the enduring struggle for freedom.
AIDAAUFESTIVALDESALZBOURG2022©RUTHWALZ
In Loreto Aprutino, amid olive groves and rolling hills shaped by time, the No Man’s Land Foundation inaugurates a new chapter of its story: the Ex-Caserma Space, opening to the public on Saturday, October 11 at 6 p.m. with an exhibition of artist ceramics curated by Alessandro Cocchieri, director of Villa Pacchiani in Santa Croce sull’Arno.
This opening is more than a new exhibition venue it is an extension of a vision: a “land for everyone,” where art engages with matter, community, and nature. The show features works by Marco Bagnoli, Alberto Garutti, Fabrice Hyber, Gülsün Karamustafa, Felice Levini, H.H. Lim, Luigi Ontani, Gino Sabatini Odoardi, Remo Salvadori, Donatella Spaziani, Giuseppe Stampone, and Vedovamazzei, presenting ceramics not merely as a medium, but as a language capable of spanning time, tradition, and culture.
The project continues the collaboration between No Man’s Land, the Civic Museums of Loreto Aprutino, and the Giacomo Acerbo Foundation, guardians of the historic Ceramiche di Castelli. This long-standing craft tradition meets contemporary artistic experimentation, creating a dialogue between ancient techniques and radical contemporary practice. The Ex-Caserma Space, supported by the DirectorateGeneral for Contemporary Creativity (MiC), the Fondazione Pescarabruzzo, and the Municipality of Loreto Aprutino, is designed as an active hub for research and exchange. In addition to showcasing works by international masters, the project includes workshops for schools of all levels and educational partnerships with the Faculty of Architecture at the University “Gabriele D’Annunzio” of Pescara and the Academy of Fine Arts of L’Aquila, promoting knowledge and experimentation with ceramic materials.
IFounded in 2016 from an idea shared by Yona Friedman, the visionary “architect of realizable utopias,” and Mario Pieroni and Dora Stiefelmeier (Zerynthia), the No Man’s Land Foundation extends over two hectares of Abruzzo countryside. It is a place where art and nature intertwine, and every intervention becomes an act of collective freedom and dialogue. With the opening of the Ex-Caserma Space, No Man’s Land reaffirms its mission: making art a fertile, collective ground where ceramics become living matter capable of preserving memory while shaping the future.
This September, Galleria Continua celebrates the thirtyfifth anniversary of its first exhibition space in the medieval town of San Gimignano, marking over three decades of fostering dialogue and cultural exchange through contemporary art. Alongside the solo exhibitions of Alicja Kwade, Yoan Capote, and Michelangelo Pistoletto, the gallery presents a special tribute to Chen Zhen with Un Village sans frontières
The three founders of Galleria Continua first met Chen Zhen in 1999, during his participation in the Venice Biennale.
Their encounter forged a lasting relationship that has profoundly shaped the gallery’s history. Inspired by Chen, the founders opened the gallery’s first international branch in Beijing in 2005, embarking on a global journey that continues to this day. Twenty-five years after his untimely passing, Chen Zhen remains a pivotal figure in contemporary art. His work exemplifies pluralism and continues to influence generations of artists Since the late 1980s, Chen sought to dissolve boundaries between Eastern and Western thought, creating art that engages with culture, society, and human experience in a deeply interconnected way.
Initially focused on painting, Chen turned to installations in 1989, repurposing everyday objects to create works that merge Chinese tradition with modern consumer society a synthesis that now feels prophetic. At the core of his practice is the concept of “trans-experience,” which he describes as a union of residence (adapting to places), resonance (dialogue with others), and resistance (to new cultural influences) In conversation with his alter ego, Zhu Xian, Chen explains that trans-experience is not merely conceptual, but an experiential method that connects past and future, adapts to change, accumulates experience, and activates at any moment.
Central to Chen’s work are “networks of relationships” the immersion of the self in life, identification with others, and the exchanges and conflicts between people, society, nature, science, and technology.
His installations are often deeply informed by his personal history, particularly his struggle with an autoimmune disease diagnosed at twenty-five. Following this diagnosis, he spent three months in Tibet living with monks, embracing a simple lifestyle detached from material concerns. This experience profoundly shaped his perception of time and placed the human body at the center of his research Many of his works focus on physical elements, including internal organs, reflecting his interest in the body as both a site of vulnerability and a medium for therapeutic and purifying expression.
Un Village sans frontières offers a timely homage to Chen Zhen, celebrating an artist whose work transcends cultural and geographic boundaries, creating a legacy of empathy, connection, and artistic innovation that continues to resonate today.
Chen Zhen, Fu Dao / Fu Dao, Upside-down Buddha / Arrival at Good Fortune, 1997 metal, bamboo, Buddha Statues, found objects, string, 500 x 800 x 650 cm (approx.),
Courtesy: GALLERIA CONTINUA, Copyright: © ADAGP, Paris Photographer: Ela Bialkowska
What remains of a work of art when time has passed, the installation dismantled, and the artist moved on to something else? For Michele Alberto Sereni, what remains is always an image a space of reflection where the visible and the invisible meet, where the gesture of creation lingers.
On view from October 4 to November 16 at the Church of the Suffragio in Pesaro, L’opera in sé Art Photographs and Artist Portraits from 1990 to 2024 presents the visual journey of one of Italy’s most respected art photographers. Curated by Roberto Lacarbonara and promoted by the Municipality of Pesaro and the Fondazione Pescheria – Centro Arti Visive, the exhibition expands on the namesake book published by Magonza and supported by Strategia Fotografia 2024, within the Ministry of Culture’s “Strategic Plan for the Development of Photography in Italy and Abroad 2024–2026.”
The show brings together seventeen large-format photographs that reveal over three decades of encounters between Sereni and the artists who have shaped his gaze. His lens is not documentary in nature but dialogical, the place where the creative act and its representation merge into a single form the work in itself. The exhibition retraces the photographer’s early steps in Pesaro and the Marche, territories that saw his first collaborations with Italian and international artists As curator Lacarbonara notes, there is a “before and after Mattiacci” in Sereni’s career. His first photographs of Eliseo Mattiacci in 1996 marked a decisive turning point: from architectural and still-life photography to a total immersion in the world of contemporary art. From that moment on, Sereni became what Paolo Icaro called a “dialoguing factor” the silent counterpart who connects the artist’s gesture to the visual destiny of the artwork.
The exhibition unfolds like an atlas of relationships: the iconic image of Jannis Kounellis throwing a coat during his 2016 installation at the Pescheria; the meditative intensity of Paolo Icaro shaping his environmental sculptures; the monumental presence of Eliseo Mattiacci framed among metal forms and lifting devices; the quiet tension of Gilberto Zorio’s neon-lit spaces. Each image holds the stillness of a revelation a moment where the photograph ceases to be documentation and becomes creation.
Alongside these early companions appear other artists from subsequent generations Giovanni Anselmo, Pino Spagnulo, Pier Paolo Calzolari (portrayed in a singular “dance” with Achille Bonito Oliva), Luigi Carboni, Matteo Fato, Goldschmied & Chiari, Jacob Hashimoto, Wolfgang Laib, Matteo Nasini, Marco Neri, Luigi Ontani, Sissi, and Giovanni Termini tracing a collective portrait of Italian and international art through Sereni’s distinctive gaze In L’opera in sé, the photograph is not a mirror of the artwork but its continuation the point where art, artist, and image converge into a single act of vision. Sereni does not simply capture the artwork; he reveals its inner form, its silent persistence, its capacity to exist beyond the moment of creation.
EAST MEETS WEST IN ROBERTA REDAELLI’S AW
2025-26 COLLECTION
The new Autumn/Winter 2025-26 collection by Italian brand Roberta Redaelli, aptly named A Thousand and One Nights, invites a journey across time and culture, where East and West meet in a delicate dance of mirrors, reflections, and shared stories. The collection seduces with an exotic, timeless allure, blending past and present through an audacious mix of textures, prints, and fabrics that enchant both sight and touch
Drawing inspiration from the opulent world of Ottoman fashion, the collection was sparked by a visit to Istanbul’s Sadberk Hanim Museum, home to exquisite 19th-century Ottoman garments. The luxurious fabrics and baroque silhouettes sparked the designer’s imagination, resulting in pieces that are at once simple and meticulously crafted, each a celebration of unique and sumptuous textiles.
Jacquard brocades, woven in the brand’s innovative knit techniques, are paired with printed silks in unexpected patchwork combinations. The result evokes the grandeur of historical nobility, reinterpreted in a contemporary, minimalist key that surprises and delights with originality.
A fine relief print overlays the jacquard, creating a subtle echo of the underlying pattern a reflection of embroidery reimagined through avant-garde textile printing
The color palette draws from precious gemstones topaz, sapphire, malachite, garnet infusing the collection with vibrant, emotionally resonant tones that speak to the wearer with refined confidence and authenticity. Small, thoughtful details elevate each piece: colorful tassels, delicate tulle that drapes like a cloud, and retro-inspired fringes transform knits into must-have statement pieces.
In Redaelli’s vision, fashion becomes a creative declaration, a way for clothing to embody a philosophy of life that places the woman at the center. Versatile, high-quality pieces allow countless styling possibilities, breathing new life into the wardrobe. Jackets the brand’s core product take the spotlight, proving indispensable: effortlessly paired with jeans and sneakers, leather skirts, classic trousers, or bold, statement dresses The only limit is the imagination of the wearer A Thousand and One Nights is an invitation to step into a faraway world, discovering the luxury of Made in Italy and fashion elevated to the level of art. Roberta Redaelli’s AW 2025-26 collection is a masterful dialogue between cultures, a timeless journey across fabrics, colors, and dreams.
Credits:
Fashion brand: Roberta Redaelli – www.robertaredaelli.com
Make-up & Hair: Silvia Argenton – @argentonsilvia.mua
Gioielli: www.gioielira.com
Look at the room you are in. Observe it not only for its shapes, its colors, the light that sculpts it. Look at it as a system of relationships made of material, where every object a chair, a table, a lamp is a code that prescribes behaviors, distances, and possibilities of encounter. We often believe we choose our furnishings for taste or functionality. But what if, unknowingly, we were choosing the rules of the game for our relationships? What if the distance between two armchairs measured not just centimeters, but also the potential for connection? This is an invitation to decode the invisible architecture that governs our daily lives: every home is not just an aesthetic shell, but a powerful machine that produces proximity, distance, conflict, and harmony. Before furnishing a space, furniture shapes our bonds.
Furniture doesn't just furnish space: it furnishes relationships. A round table dissolves hierarchies and encourages democratic conversation. A corner sofa forces physical proximity, creating zones of intimacy. A wall bookcase transforms culture into a shared landscape. Every piece of furniture is a silent choreography that prescribes distances, postures, and modes of encounter. Erving Goffman taught us that social life is a theatrical performance: the home becomes its material stage, where family identity is performed through the strategic arrangement of objects and bodies in space. The formal living room serves for the public representation of the family, the lived-in kitchen reveals the authenticity of everyday life, and the bedroom guards the deepest intimacy. Furniture is never neutral: it is a language made of volumes, surfaces, and distances that speaks of our relational expectations.
Does the open kitchen democratize or expose? Tearing down the wall means social participation, but also visibility of domestic clutter. Does the guest room welcome or separate? Every threshold, every wall, every door is a relational declaration. Interior architecture operates through inclusions and exclusions: it establishes hierarchies of visibility and accessibility, regulating the possibilities of contact and separation Design shapes domestic proxemics, the science of social distances codified by Edward Hall: intimate, personal, social, and public. These distances are rewritten inside the home through design choices that favor sharing or protect individuality. The objects on display tell us who we want to be, constructing a visible biography of the family. Framed photos select moments worthy of public memory. Books declare cultural affiliations. The inherited sofa embodies generational bonds. Pierre Bourdieu spoke of "distinction": taste as a marker of class. But furniture does more: it constructs shared memory, materializing multiple identities. A piece of furniture is a witness to transformations, a narrator of relationships, a custodian of meanings that link the private to the social. The home becomes a living archive, a personal museum, a three-dimensional narrative of one ' s emotional genealogy.
There is a furniture of welcome and a furniture of defense. Soft seating invites you to stay, while warm lighting slows down time. Conversely, rigid chairs hasten departures, and cold lights keep you alert and focused. Every aesthetic choice is also an ethical choice: deciding how we want others to inhabit our space means deciding what kind of community we want to build. Furniture becomes an instrument of domestic social engineering, capable of shaping the possibilities for encounter, dialogue, conflict, and reconciliation.
Understanding this secret language of spaces means enriching beauty and function with new awareness; becoming active directors of our domestic theater. The next time you move an armchair or decide on the intensity of a light, you will know you are not performing a simple aesthetic gesture. You will be designing not just a house, but the very fabric of the relationships that will bring it to life. And this is the highest and most intimate form of design.
Tiziano Bordoni President Emilia Romagna Department ANS (Associazione Nazionale Sociologi / National Association of Sociologists)
Amid the timeless stone tiers and panoramic seascape of the Ancient Theatre of Taormina, Jago’s solo exhibition Gesti Scolpiti (Sculpted Gestures) unfolds as a powerful dialogue between contemporary sculpture and millennia-old heritage. Running until May 3, 2026, and organized by Aditus and Civita Sicilia in collaboration with BAM, the exhibition brings four works by the internationally acclaimed Italian sculptor into resonant tension with one of Sicily’s most iconic archaeological sites
Jago an artist celebrated for his mastery of marble and his fierce independence frames the human hand as the primal tool of creation, resistance, and self-assertion. His first three works on view, Impronta Animale (2012), Memoria (2015), and Prigione (2016), all carved in statuary marble, revolve around the touch as origin and destiny: the point where physical gesture becomes symbolic trace.
In Impronta Animale, a human hand emerges as if fossilized, evoking prehistoric cave markings a return to the earliest moments when humanity sought to leave a record of existence. Memoria deepens this reflection, presenting a recessed handprint carved into stone: a void that speaks, a tactile echo testifying to presence, loss, and legacy. Prigione, by contrast, embodies struggle the contours of a human form straining beneath smooth stone folds, suspended between emergence and containment Here, the gesture is pure urgency: the human body fighting for freedom from its own material confinement, a metaphor for the perennial struggle between constraints and selfdetermination.
Placed against Taormina’s classical architecture and mythic horizon, these works become time-bridges sculptural breaths between antiquity and modernity.
The exhibition culminates in the striking bronze David (2024), standing 181 cm tall atop the ancient tribune a commanding presence overlooking sea and sky after traveling the globe aboard the ship Amerigo Vespucci.
Unlike Michelangelo’s male hero, Jago’s David is a poised female figure gripping sling and stone an anthem of courage, defiance, and rebirth. Classical in posture, yet unequivocally contemporary in spirit, the sculpture reframes the David and Goliath myth as an ode to resilience and empowerment.
The work represents the culmination of an intense artistic journey: from a 2021 clay maquette, to multiple studies in clay and plaster, to this bronze cast using the ancient lostwax method. Its final incarnation a monumental Carrara marble version over four meters tall promises to stand as one of the artist’s defining achievements. The exhibition’s opening on September 4, 2025, became an event in itself.
Before over a thousand attendees, Jago taped over the nudity and mouth of his David a symbolic act of selfcensorship protesting Meta’s repeated removal of images of the work, erroneously flagged as explicit content.
“I do not accept that AI decides what to censor and what not. For this reason, I chose to censor myself,” the artist stated. Initially mistaken for vandalism, the gesture soon triggered applause as its meaning became clear: a confrontation with algorithmic morality, digital gatekeeping, and the contested borders of artistic freedom. The tape remains on the sculpture for now a living question mark left in the artist’s hands In Taormina, Jago’s sculptures become not only objects but actions: traces of will, symbols of conflict, and meditations on legacy. Gesti Scolpiti is a testament to sculpture’s enduring role as witness and provocation a reminder that gestures, once carved, reverberate across centuries.
In an era when digital images flicker and vanish at the mercy of code, Jago returns us to stone, weight, touch, and the irrevocable truth of the mark the human hand insists on leaving behind.
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