Massimo Scolari: “Solca Mari Mossi” at Antonia Jannone in Milan
- Redazione
- 7 days ago
- 2 min read
After more than thirty years away, Massimo Scolari returns to exhibit in Milan within the historic spaces of the Galleria Antonia Jannone Disegni di Architettura, which last hosted him in 1992.
Solca Mari Mossi, on view from 19 November to 24 December 2025 with an opening event on 19 November at 6:00 PM at Corso Garibaldi 125, is a dense and rigorous exhibition retracing over half a century of artistic research, from the 1970s to 2020.
The show brings together mostly unpublished oils, watercolors, and etchings, in which two of Scolari’s major obsessions converge: figurative archetypes and mountain architecture—the latter understood as a primal, symbolic, and cosmogonic form. Painter, sculptor, designer, theorist, and historian, Scolari embodies the idea of the artist as poíētēs, the one who “makes”: he paints, builds, designs objects, writes, and shapes entire worlds.
Author of iconic works such as L’Arca (Milan Triennale, 1986), Ali (Venice Biennale, 1991)—a monumental sculpture now located on the roof of the IUAV University in Venice—and Turris Babel (Venice Biennale, 2004), Scolari has also crossed into design with projects for Giorgetti and Alessi, including the Segnalibro and silver-point pencil, awarded an Honorable Mention at the Compasso d’Oro in 1998. In 2014, the American Academy of Arts and Letters honored him with the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture for his contribution to architecture as an art form.
The paintings on view evoke metaphysical visions populated by towers, wings, fortresses, pyramids, stormy seas, and mountains—worlds devoid of human figures yet charged with “waiting.” As Daniele Del Giudice once wrote: “the object is there, but as a silent aftermath… an imitation of truth.” Alongside the canvases, a selection of pen drawings blends imagination with architectural rigor, revealing the technical precision that defines his artistic language.
The exhibition journey is enriched by photographs of Scolari’s installations captured by Luigi Ghirri, Gabriele Basilico, and Luca Campigotto, as well as publications and rare editions, including On Drawing, a book of aphorisms and sketches translated by James S. Ackerman. The show is accompanied by a catalog published by Grafiche Antiga, featuring texts by Scolari, Del Giudice, and Léon Krier.
With works held in collections such as MoMA, the Centre Pompidou, and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, and an academic path spanning Harvard, Yale, and IUAV, Scolari returns to Milan with an exhibition that does not celebrate the past, but reactivates it—as myth, form, and destiny.
Antonia Jannone Disegni di Architettura
Corso Garibaldi 125 – Milano
Date
19 novembre 2025 - 24 dicembre 2025
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