Fondazione Pino Pascali celebrates its 90th anniversary with two exhibitions and awards the 2025 Prize to Roberto Cuoghi

On 19 October, Pino Pascali would have turned ninety. Fifty-six years after his death, the Fondazione Pino Pascali celebrates the artist with an intense weekend of events in his hometown, Polignano a Mare.

Roberto Cuoghi, A(XLVIIPs)t, 2021 Photo: Sarah Muehlbauer

Two key dates mark the occasion: on 18 October, the inauguration of the Premio Pino Pascali, awarded this year to Roberto Cuoghi; and on 19 October, the opening of the exhibition “Pino Pascali. Dal 1956 ad oggi”, a wide-ranging project dedicated to the life, work, and enduring legacy of one of the most vital figures of twentieth-century Italian art.

The Pino Pascali Prize to Roberto Cuoghi

Established in 1969 by Palma Bucarelli together with Pascali’s parents, the Pino Pascali Prize is among the longest-running and most significant awards in the Italian contemporary art scene. Over the decades, it has honoured artists such as Jannis Kounellis, Vettor Pisani, Maurizio Mochetti, Vincenzo Agnetti, Jan Fabre, Nathalie Djurberg, Ibrahim Mahama, and, in recent years, Francesco Arena and Nico Vascellari.

For its 27th edition, the Foundation selected Roberto Cuoghi, recognising “his ability to merge the individual and the socio-anthropological dimensions in a dialogue of metamorphosis and experimentation that resonates with Pascali’s own poetics.”

Born in Modena in 1973, Cuoghi is one of the most distinctive figures on the international art scene. His work spans painting, sculpture, sound, and installation, exploring transformation and imitation as creative processes. After representing Italy in the 57th Venice Biennale (curated by Cecilia Alemani) with the work Imitation of Christ, Cuoghi presented exhibitions at the Fridericianum in Kassel and with the retrospective Perla Pollina 1996–2016, held between the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva and the Museo Madre in Naples.

Pino Pascali, Algida, 1959-62, Collezione privata, Bari  

Pino Pascali. Dal 1956 ad oggi

The following day, on 19 October at 7 p.m., the Foundation inaugurates Pino Pascali. From 1956 to Today, an exhibition that retraces the artist’s creative trajectory — from his early years in Rome to his period of full artistic maturity.

Set within the museum’s basement galleries, the exhibition features works, documents, stage designs, photographs, and archival materials, offering insight into Pascali’s imagination and personality. The installation also recreates the atmosphere of his studio, with personal objects and tools revealing the close connection between life and artistic practice.

Visitors are invited to revisit Pascali’s early collective exhibitions, his television collaborations, preparatory studies, and the installations that established him as a key figure in Italy’s Arte Povera and conceptual movements.

Through these two initiatives — the Pino Pascali Prize awarded to Cuoghi and the retrospective dedicated to its namesake — the Fondazione Pino Pascali reaffirms its role as a leading institution for contemporary art in Puglia, transforming the artist’s 90th anniversary into an opportunity to reflect on the past, present, and future of Italian art.

Fondazione Pino Pascali Bari

Date XXVII Roberto Cuoghi

18 Ottobre 2025 – 3 maggio 2026

PINO PASCALI. Dal 1956 ad oggi

19 ottobre 2025 – 31 Dicembre 2025