Meret Oppenheim in the street exhibitions at Palazzo Bentivoglio

Palazzo Bentivoglio’s “street exhibition” series continues in the display window facing Via del Borgo di San Pietro with a new installment: the focus is on the work of Meret Oppenheim, one of the most original artists of European Surrealism.

Through June 6, 2026, Wednesday–Saturday, 7:00 PM–11:00 PM

Meret Oppenheim, Traccia, 1972, garage BENTIVOGLIO, Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna, ph. Carlo Favero

Bologna, May 21, 2026. Palazzo Bentivoglio’s “street exhibition” program continues, featuring works displayed in the space’s window facing Via del Borgo di San Pietro. Through June 6, 2026, the star of the BENTIVOGLIO garage is Traccia (1972) by Meret Oppenheim, a work in which the Swiss artist transforms a piece of furniture into an ambiguous and unsettling presence, suspended between memories of the past and surrealist metamorphosis. Two brass legs fixed beneath an elliptical top evoke the remnant of an interrupted mutation: a familiar form that escapes its function and instead opens up to a poetic and animalistic imagination.

The work was created within the context of Ultramobile, a project launched in the early 1970s by Simon, the company founded in 1968 by the Bolognese entrepreneur Dino Gavina together with Maria Simonicini. Following pivotal experiences such as those at Gavina Spa and Flos, Gavina embarked on a radically different direction with Simon, entrusting artists—rather than designers—with the opportunity to reinvent the domestic object. Going against the grain of the major transformations in Italian design of the period—marked by student and working-class protests that brought new social needs and desires to the fore—Ultramobile drew on an imagery rooted in Dadaism and Surrealism, reinterpreting works and ideas in which form renounced all practical purpose to embrace the poetic and symbolic.

Eva e Franco Mattes, Ceiling cat, 2016

In these years, as Italian design is profoundly redefining its own language—thanks in part to international dialogue and the historic exhibition curated by Emilio Ambasz at MoMA in New York—Gavina’s work follows a different trajectory. As curator Davide Trabucco states, “it has no connection to the questions of those years.” The artists’ works are not tied to any corporate know-how, but are the result of the individual’s creative flair; there is no relationship between form and function, and above all, rather than foreshadowing new worlds, they seem to evoke reassuring vestiges of the past, which we have already encountered in some fantasy or dreamlike moment.”

In Traccia, Oppenheim draws on this dreamlike dimension and his own surrealist zoomorphic vocabulary to give form to an object that defies classification. The golden legs supporting the elliptical surface belong to an indefinable animal: “too large to belong to a normal chicken, too small to perhaps belong to a now-extinct prehistoric creature. But on the surface we find some traces; others like it have undergone the same transformation, yet managed to fly away from us.”

Marinella Senatore. We Rise By Rise by Lifting Others

First solo exhibition by the artist in Puglia

Curated by Raffaele Quattrone

29 May – 8 September 2026

Masseria Torre Maizza

From 29 May to 8 September 2026, Masseria Torre Maizza presents We Rise By Lifting Others, an artistic project by Marinella Senatore curated by Raffaele Quattrone.

The artist’s first solo exhibition in Puglia, We Rise By Lifting Others features six works installed throughout the property, transforming the Rocco Forte Hotels destination into a journey where light weaves together themes of community and collective memory.

THE THEME OF COMMUNITY | At the heart of the project is the work that gives the exhibition its title: We Rise By Lifting Others, the largest illuminated architectural installation ever created by the artist. Positioned at the entrance to the estate, the work acts as a solo voice welcoming guests into the masseria and, through its monumental scale, extends beyond the boundaries of the property to engage in dialogue with the surrounding territory and community.

“We Rise by Lifting Others speaks about solidarity, but also about interdependence and vulnerability. It reminds us that individual growth is never truly individual,” states Marinella Senatore.

“The installation creates a dialogue between inside and outside, between guests and the territory, transcending both physical and symbolic boundaries,” adds Raffaele Quattrone.

Like a chorus, the addition of five further works amplifies the experience, guiding visitors through an immersive journey staged within the former feeding trough area, now dedicated to conviviality and gathering.

THE THEME OF MEMORY | The theme of community resonates in unison with that of memory, through an authentic celebration of Puglia and its cultural heritage. Drawing on elements deeply rooted in the local culture — so enduring as to feel contemporary — We Rise by Lifting Others evokes traditions that can still be traced today and whose origins date back to the sixteenth century:

• the use of light as a trait d’union for popular festivities and collective rituals;

• the productive and landscape identity of the region, marked by the establishment of masserie and their surrounding olive groves.

We Rise by Lifting Others transcends a purely aesthetic dimension to become an experience of encounter, participation, and belonging within a context devoted to hospitality.

In the words of Olga Polizzi, co-founder of the group and Director of Design, the collaboration with Marinella Senatore reflects a deep affinity of values: Rocco Forte Hotels has always been committed to enhancing the cultural and social heritage of the destinations in which it operates, promoting an idea of hospitality grounded in authenticity, participation, and the value of shared moments — all elements that are central to the artist’s practice and to the project We Rise By Lifting Others.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Artist: Marinella SenatoreTitle: We Rise By Lifting OthersCurated by: Raffaele QuattroneProject realised in collaboration with: MazzoleniDates: 29 May – 8 September 2026Venue: Masseria Torre Maizza, Savelletri di Fasano, Brindisi

BIOGRAPHIES

Marinella Senatore

Born in Cava de’ Tirreni in 1977, Marinella Senatore is a multidisciplinary artist trained in music, visual arts, and cinema. Her practice is characterised by a strong collective and participatory dimension, combining aesthetic research and social engagement through installations, performances, and public-space interventions.

In 2012 she founded the School of Narrative Dance (SOND), a nomadic, free, and non-hierarchical school proposing an alternative educational model based on empowerment and self-education. Over more than ten years, SOND has developed projects in over 23 countries involving approximately eight million people.

Light is a central element of her research, understood as a narrative device and a tool for social cohesion. Her large-scale illuminated sculptures — handcrafted in Puglia and inspired by the Southern Italian tradition of luminarie — have been presented in museums, public spaces, and international festivals, including Art Unlimited at Art Basel and the Noor Riyadh.

Senatore’s works have been exhibited and commissioned by major international institutions including Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Centre Pompidou, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Serpentine Gallery, Palais de Tokyo, MAXXI, Palazzo Strozzi, Kunsthaus Zürich, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, High Line New York, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, and Berlinische Galerie.

Recently named Artist of the Year 2026 by the GNAMC in Rome, the artist has also participated in numerous international biennials, including the Venice Biennale and the São Paulo Biennial.

Raffaele Quattrone

Sociologist and contemporary art curator. His curatorial research explores the relationship between art, cultural imagination, collective memory, and social transformations, developing projects across cultural institutions, public spaces, and international hospitality contexts.

He has curated exhibitions and projects with international artists for museums, foundations, and institutions in Italy and abroad, collaborating in recent years with Rocco Forte Hotels on a series of site-specific interventions dedicated to the dialogue between contemporary art, territory, and local identity.

Masseria Torre Maizza

Located in the heart of the Itria Valley, Masseria Torre Maizza is an authentic sixteenth-century Apulian retreat surrounded by olive groves, vineyards, and almond trees. The hotel combines tradition with modern luxury, reflecting the simplicity and warmth of Puglian heritage.

Designed by Olga Polizzi, Director of Design at Rocco Forte Hotels, the interiors feature locally sourced materials in a palette of white, terracotta, and green, selected to create a serene and elegant atmosphere.

Guests can enjoy a refined selection of regional dishes at the Carosello Restaurant, Violetta Pool Bar, and Bougainville Bar. Nearby, the Lido Bambù beach club offers a private seaside escape complete with luxury services.

Edi Hila. Fracured Horizons

Malmö, 8.11 2025 – 12.4 2026

Edi Hila is widely regarded as one of Albania’s most significant artists – a painter who has captured his country’s dramatic social transformation while conveying the shifting conditions of the world we share. In his hands, fragments of reality become timeless poetry, making the invisible visible – moods, relationships, and changing values. With pink, blue, and gold tones set against the greyness of concrete, his works conjure both the weight of history and the fragility of dreams. Hila’s oeuvre has established him as one of the most influential artists in the Balkan region. Moderna Museet Malmö presents his first solo exhibition in Scandinavia.

The year 1991 marks the fall of one of the world’s most insular and repressive regimes – Albania’s communist dictatorship. For more than forty years, the country’s population had been isolated from the outside world; possession of a passport was prohibited and attempts to flee were punishable by death. When the dictatorship – the last in Europe – finally collapsed, people were left to navigate a new and uncertain reality.

Freed from Socialist Realism’s propagandistic straitjacket, Edi Hila began to depict society on his own terms. He developed a painterly idiom he calls ‘paradoxical realism’, capturing the transition between two world orders – its atmospheres, colours, and architectural imprints.

“Edi Hila’s paintings from this period speak of enthusiasm, ingenuity, and grand dreams – but also of the confusion that erupted, and the traces of lawlessness and corruption in cities and natural landscapes. As viewers, we are led through stifling air and dusty city streets, yet the stillness and poetic colour palette anchor us in an art-historical tradition that stretches back centuries. His work is deeply entrenched in the aesthetics of the Italian Renaissance,” says curator Joa Ljungberg.

In several of Hila’s paintings, the viewer’s gaze is blocked from penetrating further into the pictorial space, prevented from reaching the horizon’s promise and uncertainty.

Public buildings tower before us like sealed monuments, custodians of former regimes’ faded utopias and hubris. Against a darkening sky, a solitary ship fractures the line between sea and sky. Laden with migrants, it looms towards the picture plane – harbouring dreams of a better life.

As the world grows increasingly volatile, Hila turns his gaze beyond Albania’s borders. The tent becomes a key motif in his pictorial vocabulary – an expression of a longing for freedom and a symbiotic relationship with nature, a home that breathes with the landscape. At the same time, the tent is an architecture of necessity and survival – a last refuge when stability collapses. A fractured horizon line may be read as crystal formations and ice floes, or as a tent encampment in the distance – perhaps an image of an uncertain future, or a yearning to escape, to get away, and to move on.

Edi Hila was born in 1944 in Shkodër and lives and works in Tirana. His work reached a wider international audience with Albania’s inaugural national pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1997. Since then, he has been the subject of major solo exhibitions in Vienna, Milan, Florence, Warsaw, Paris, and his hometown of Tirana. A landmark presentation at documenta 14 – in both Athens and Kassel – consolidated his position as a central voice in international contemporary art.

The exhibition has been conceived and curated by Joa Ljungberg of Moderna Museet Malmö and Corinne Diserens of Hamburger Kunsthalle. It is co-produced by Moderna Museet Malmö and Hamburger Kunsthalle and is accompanied by a multilingual catalogue. The catalogue features in-depth essays and interviews, along with a rich selection of sketches, paintings, and drawings spanning half a century of Edi Hila’s oeuvre.

The exhibition is shown in the galleries on Floor 2.

Curator: Joa Ljungberg