Edoardo Tresoldi returns to Rome. This time with a work commissioned by the Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti Foundation, curated by Piergiorgio Caserini, and installed in front of PM23, the Foundation’s exhibition and cultural space.
Tresoldi’s metal mesh thus takes center stage in Piazza Mignanelli—one of the capital’s most evocative locations and the historic home of the House of Valentino—through sixteen columns over six meters tall that seem to appear and disappear within the urban landscape. This is the artistic language that has distinguished the artist’s work for years—constructed using a “transparent” material like wire mesh, yet one that is perfectly perceptible, capable of giving form to architecture while simultaneously lightening its weight.
On this occasion, the sixteen columns inevitably stand in contrast to the Column of the Immaculate Conception, which dominates the square; at its top stands a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary, approximately four meters tall, sculpted by Giuseppe Obici and cast by Luigi De Rossi.
As the Foundation explains on Instagram, Tresoldi’s columns “evoke a forest, transforming an architectural element into a presence that recalls nature. Through transparency and the dialogue between the material and the immaterial, the work integrates into the urban space without erasing it, inviting viewers to rediscover its history and view it from a new perspective.” The Foundation aims to “interpret contemporary patronage as an act of trust and creative freedom: offering artists the opportunity to imagine new forms of relationship between art, architecture, landscape, and community, thereby creating new opportunities for encounter and sharing.”
The result is a sort of architecture within architecture, in which Tresoldi’s contemporary forms do not conceal the existing ones but temporarily alter our perception of them. As is often the case in his work, urban memory and landscape coexist.
The installation, titled “Selva,” will remain on view through January 2027, transforming Piazza Mignanelli for a few months and creating a new intersection between contemporary art, Roman architecture, and the history of the House of Valentino.
[📸 Instagram: pm23official]
