Sala del Piccolo Lucernario

Remo Salvadori belongs to the generation of artists who started to work between the second half of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. It was a period of transition, in which the ideological dictates of Minimalism and Conceptual Art were still very strong and in which a need was felt to move away from their rigidity.

The three works on display in the Sala del Piccolo Lucernario are an example of how the artist superseded the language of Minimalism. Although this can still be perceived when looking at the new work in iron positioned on the ground, Figura (Figure), 1997 (2025), the formal leap this entailed is clearly underlined by the presence of the older work L’osservatore si sposta osservandosi (The Observer Moves, Observing Himself), 1982, a tripod with a golden element on top, placed here in a particularly illuminating relationship with the new one.

L’osservatore si sposta osservandosi (which would later be giv- en an even more explicit title: L’osservatore non l’oggetto osservato [The Observer not the Object Observed]) was to become a sort of recurrent topos in Salvadori’s artistic production in the following years, inviting us to focus the attention on ourselves, as well as on the work. A shift in perspective with which the artist distanced himself from the prescriptive character typical of the maximalism of the 1960s and “opened up” to different ways of doing art, through which positivity of existence and inner harmony were brought into accord with the liv- ing and with the world and its substance. The presence of a golden element, a sort of curl set on the platform where the camera is nor- mally mounted, helps to intensify the sculpture, bestowing an almost regal attribute on it. The gold in this case spurs the viewer toward the alchemical dimension in which this metal represents the power of transmutation of things with a view to the attainment of an ideal per- fection. Starting on July 16, with the opening of Salvadori anthological exhibition, visitors will have the opportunity to once again encounter this work along the exhibition itinerary overlooking Piazza del Duomo.

Mounted in such a way that it rests on top of Figura, we find Continuo infinito presente (Continuous Infinite Present), 1985 (2025), a circle made up of a series of intertwined steel cables. The circle has had many meanings in the history of symbols, ranging from primordi- al energy to the divine, from the cyclic succession of natural phenom- ena to the periodicity of time and the motion of the heavenly bodies. For Salvadori the circle “consists in a permanent interrogation and is of a higher author.” A figure that the artist has found in one of Omar Khayyâm’s poems: “This coming and going, a cycle all share, where it begins, where it ends, no one’s aware.”

Sala delle Cariatidi

A new work with the title No’ si volta chi a stella è fisso (Fixed Upon a Star One Turns Not), 2004 (2025), is presented in the Sala delle Cariatidi. It is made up of eight parallelepipedal elements arranged in such a way that the empty space at their center recalls a star. Although not the first version of this work, this is the first time it has been real- ized on such a large scale. Its title is a reference to a celebrated aph- orism of Leonardo da Vinci’s in which Salvadori sees a reflection of his own journey. Leonardo’s phrase suggests the need to keep the atten- tion focused on what interests us, without letting ourselves be dis- tracted by the irrelevant events that go on around us: the statement “No’ si volta chi a stella è fisso is not an end in itself, but something that needs to be put into practice. The titles of my works are never intend- ed to define, but represent processes that continue to be renewed and remain active. They are permanent indications of practice.” (Salvadori)

A characteristic typical of Salvadori’s mode of operation is the inclusion in the creative process of other people who do not neces- sarily come from the world of the visual arts. All his works, since the 1970s, have taken shape through an ongoing dialogue with artists, pho- tographers, poets, scientists, art historians, philosophers, students and musicians with whom Salvadori engaged over the years.

On the occasion of the opening, a musical performance by the collective Tutto Questo Sentire, made up of Sandro Mussida and the artist’s daughters Olivia and Rebecca Salvadori, will be held in this room, where No’ si volta chi a stella è fisso is installed. The presence of musical interventions at the artist’s exhibitions is something that has been a part of his activity since the beginning of the 2000s and has become customary for some time now. In this case it is a musical performance inspired by Salvadori’s work.

The voice that can be heard in the Sala delle Cariatidi for the entire duration of the exhibition is also that of a member of Tutto Questo Sentire.