2025-10-02

Bocconi Art Gallery

Università Bocconi, Milano

BOCCONI ART GALLERY
UNIVERSITÀ BOCCONI, MILANO

OPENING THURSDAY 2 OCTOBER 2025

On the occasion of Bocconi Art Gallery, the Bocconi University is pleased to invite you to an evening of art, photography, and music on Thursday, October 2, 2025, starting at 4 p.m., when the campus opens its doors to the city for a journey into contemporary art.

For the twelfth edition of the project, the University has involved the Associazione Culturale Amici di Morterone, dedicating a large section to it. The new exhibition will feature 35 works installed in the prestigious premises of Bocconi University - Via Sarfatti and Via Röntgen in Milan - by international artists belonging to different generations who, since the mid-1980s, thanks to the association’s activities, have participated in the cultural fervor of Morterone, a small millennial village located in an unspoiled basin on the slopes of Mount Resegone.

Over the decades, the Associazione Culturale Amici di Morterone has involved prominent cultural figures - artists, writers, art critics, philosophers, intellectuals - to bring to life what initially seemed to be pure utopia: the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea all’Aperto di Morterone, which today consists of over forty works scattered throughout the area, in the streets, in the meadows, on houses, and the opening of the Casa dell’Arte, inaugurated in 2021, a project that had been conceived since the origins of the open-air museum.
The vision behind this reality is the poetic-philosophical concept of Natura Naturans by the poet Carlo Invernizzi, who places man at the center of his reflections, in his relationship with his surroundings, and his ability to perceive and feel what is around him not as something foreign or incidental, but as an integral part of vital becoming.

The Via Röntgen location will feature large-scale works by Gianni Asdrubali, Nicola Carrino, Gianni Colombo, Dadamaino, François Morellet, Mario Nigro, Pino Pinelli, Ulrich Rückriem, Angelo Savelli, Nelio Sonego, Mauro Staccioli, Niele Toroni, David Tremlett and Michel Verjux.
The venue in Via Sarfatti will host a focus on Morterone together with an exhibition of works by Rodolfo Aricò, Francesco Candeloro, Enrico Castellani, Lucilla Catania, Alan Charlton, Carlo Ciussi, Riccardo De Marchi, Philippe Decrauzat, Lesley Foxcroft, Riccardo Guarneri, Igino Legnaghi, Bruno Querci, Raffaella Toffolo, Günter Umberg, Grazia Varisco, Elisabeth Vary and Rudi Wach.

Both exhibitions are ideally linked to the exhibitions held in Morterone over the decades and to the recent exhibition presenting three new outdoor installations by Igino Legnaghi, Bruno Querci and Michel Verjux, as well as a new installation inside the Casa dell’Arte with an intervention by Felice Varini Giro Tondo Morterone that integrates with the architecture of the space.

The exhibition itinerary proposed by Bocconi Art Gallery allows visitors to enjoy works of extraordinary importance, including Spazio curvo by Gianni Colombo, which actively engages the space; π Weeping Neonly by François Morellet, an installation composed of 48 neon lights; Dalla metafisica del colore: i concetti strutturali elementari geometrici, Ettore e Andromaca by Mario Nigro, a work already presented at the 1978 Venice Biennale, consisting of the symmetrical progression of a line constructed on the derivations of the golden ratio; Frate Francesco by Angelo Savelli, in which dense layers of white paint reveal a cut-out geometric figure, devoid of the structure of the frame; Bocconi Rhombus by David Tremlett, a large-scale wall drawing featuring geometries that architecturally influence the perception of space.

To enrich the day, three themed talks will be held in the Aula Magna starting at 5 p.m., offering opportunities for dialogue and in-depth discussion. The first, with Epicarmo Invernizzi from the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea all’Aperto di Morterone and professors Francesca Pola and Severino Salvemini, will reflect on the link between art and nature, understood as a universal creative force. The second, “Participating in the Creative Act,” moderated by Antonella Carù, will feature a dialogue between art historian Anna Bernardini, artist Kaspar Müller, collector Ettore Buganza, and several Bocconi students who contributed directly to the works on display. This will be followed by “Writing about art,” a meeting dedicated to storytelling and critical mediation, in which the students who wrote the artwork descriptions will discuss with Susanna Caviglia and Anna Bernardini the value of writing as a form of interpretation and participation.

Since 2009, when it was conceived by Professor Severino Salvemini with the support of collector Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, Bocconi Art Gallery has been more than just an exhibition; it is a project that reflects the University’s vocation to connect knowledge and creativity. Every year, the campus is transformed into a contemporary art gallery, hosting works on loan or donated by artists, galleries, and collectors, to form a permanent collection that now includes twenty works, including Cancellazione del debito pubblico by Emilio Isgrò, the triptych by Sonia Costantini, Colonna by Arnaldo Pomodoro, Poetario by Giorgio Milani, the installation Knowledge That Matters by Lorenzo Petrantoni, Clinamen by Massimo Kaufmann, Grande Scacchiera by Elio Marchegiani, Pittura R. by Pino Pinelli, and Gate #0 by Letizia Cariello.
Viewing art not as decoration, but as an experience that changes the perception of places and people. This is the spirit of BAG, which in 2025 invites Milan to lose itself - and find itself - among its spaces.

Bocconi Art Gallery is the University’s approach to a ‘different’ contemporary world, the cultural and artistic world that is part of everyone’s life. Contemporary art, even when not fully understood, enriches and opens the mind, triggering questions and suggestions that emerge from the visual narratives in which it is expressed, whether in paintings, installations, sculptures, or photography. This is why Bocconi has chosen to invest consistently in the BAG - Bocconi Art Gallery project, constantly involving new international artists and forging partnerships with leading Italian and foreign galleries. The aim is to seek continuous cultural exchange and a rotation of works that, varying from year to year, offer different points of view and interpretations.