Altri nuovi spazi

Palazzo Bentivoglio exceptionally opens some spaces that in recent years have hosted site-specific interventions and presents to the public 'Flatland', a recently commissioned installation by Alek O. (Buenos Aires, 1981), which will permanently occupy access to the private rooms of the collection. The itinerary will start at the entrance of Via del Borgo di San Pietro 1, where following 'The Pea Brain's Zamp' (2004), neon by Cuoghi Corsello (Mantua, 1965; Bologna, 1964), visitors will be able to access the sixteenth-century underground, converted by Studio Iascone & Partners into an exhibition space inaugurated in 2019. Guided by the Palazzo Bentivoglio mediation team, visitors will be able to discover 'Ipogea' (2020- 2021) by Chiara Camoni (Piacenza, 1974), an intervention born from an accumulation of stone material coming from the building. By placing the stones in subsequent rooms, Camoni has given shape to a place inhabited by natural, organic and feminine presences, which culminates in the cave of the 'Serpentessa', whose motif was reused by the artist in his solo show at Hangar Bicocca in 2024. In the environment that connects the moments of 'Hypogea', with 'Memories of the Underground' (2021) Francesco Carone (Siena, 1975) inserts Dostoevsky's volume instead of a brick in the central pillar, a gesture that symbolically recalls the library housed on the main floor. The visit continues in the courtyard, where in the diptych of projections 'So to Say (Go Back) '(2023) by Riccardo Benassi (Cremona, 1982) the pulsation of the words' return 'and' leave 'is interrupted by the rapid flow of two poetic verses, producing a hypnotic and alienating effect. To close the itinerary, a dossier on the artist Alek O. includes in a first room — which houses works by Marc Camille Chaimowicz (Paris, 1947 - London, 2024), Wolfgang Tillmans (Remscheid, 1968) and Jacopo Benassi (La Spezia, 1970) — 'Flatland' (2019-2025), conceived starting from doormats that have come to an end and assembled to cover the entire floor. The work, which takes the form of a large inlay, returns the traces of thousands of passages and transforms the threshold into a welcoming experience. The title refers to the story (1884) by Edwin A. Abbott set in a two-dimensional universe, and invites us to observe the surface of doormats as a liminal plane between interior and exterior, reflecting on the symbolic value of crossing. There are also luminous sculptures from the series 'Hey, Siri, Lumos' (2023), ceiling lights reconfigured as small flying bodies that land in space, reformulating light as a domestic and at the same time eccentric signal. Confirming the personal and 'warm' notion of ready-made in Alek O.'s practice, a second room houses works from the series 'The Day of the End You Won't Need English' (2023), drawers that hold fragile and temporary forms of sugar, presented next to an unpublished self-portrait (2025).