From 25 May to 31 December 2024
Terza Terra is a complex artistic project that includes an exhibition in the doge's residence where some masterpieces by Michelangelo Pistoletto will be exhibited in dialogue with works by over eleven Italian and foreign artists, who also place an ethical and social dimension at the center of their work.
A busy program of meetings is planned, open to the public, invited to reflect on new opportunities for understanding art and the role of artistic expression in the transformation of society and the territory.
Also included in the exhibition is the "Third Paradise", a symbol created by Pistoletto to express the balanced interweaving of artifice and nature, which will be created in botanical form in the park of the doge's residence.
Villa Manin di Passariano (Udine), 29 April 2024 - Some of the most important works by the master Michelangelo Pistoletto, one of the most famous Italian artists, including Mirror Paintings , Venus of Rags , Sphere of Newspapers, the Cubic Meter of Infinity, they will enter into dialogue with the creations of artists from the region, from Italy and abroad, invited to compare themselves through their work with the instances of ethical and social transformation typical of the master's work. This will be the heart of the “Terza Terra” exhibition, which from 25 May 2024 and for the rest of the year will transform Villa Manin in Passariano (Udine), into a new stage of Cittadellarte, the citadel as large as a small town where Pistoletto brought to life in Biella, his hometown.
The exhibition, created under the curatorship of Guido Comis, director of Villa Manin for Erpac (Regional body for cultural heritage), in collaboration with Paolo Naldini director of Fondazione Cittadellarte, will bring the authentic spirit of the citadel to the former doge's residence , a place for other artists to compare themselves with the themes of the master's work, for debate on the ethics of production, a space for socializing and sharing with the realities of the territory. “The presence of Michelangelo Pistoletto's works at Villa Manin – explains the curator Guido Comis – will be an opportunity to make Passariano a place of creation, comparison and experimentation on the Cittadellarte model, but above all of involvement of many different souls of the region. The images of the works exhibited and created, but also the ideas that will emerge from the debates and meetings that will be held over the months – he adds – will be collected in a publication. More than a traditional catalogue, it will be the diary of a journey towards new opportunities for understanding art and its role in society".
It will, therefore, be Pistoletto's works themselves exhibited at Villa Manin that will dictate the themes of comparison and debate: society, fashion, politics, education, food and agriculture. “ The Mirror Paintings – specifies Guido Comis – will allow visitors to enter into relationships with the characters of the works and share their social situations, the Newspaper Sphere will introduce the themes of politics and communication, the Venus of rags will represent the trait d' union with fashion”.
One of the strong points of the route proposed by Villa Manin will be the Third Paradise , a symbol created by Pistoletto to express the balanced intertwining of artifice and nature, which will be created in the park of Villa Manin in botanical form, on a large scale (50 metres), and will also represent the starting point for addressing the issues of agricultural production and food sustainability that are on the agenda today. A creation "in progress", which will also be made to grow thanks to the use of a special charcoal that increases the fertility of the land, Biochar.
“The Third Paradise – writes Michelangelo Pistoletto – is the fusion between the first and second paradise. The first is the one in which humans were totally integrated into nature. The second is the artificial paradise, developed by human intelligence, up to the global dimensions reached today with science and technology. The Third Paradise is the third phase of humanity, which is realized in the balanced connection between artifice and nature, it is the passage to an unprecedented stage of planetary civilization, indispensable to ensure the human race's survival. To this end it is necessary first of all to reform the ethical principles and behaviors that guide common life”.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a program of meetings called "Art of Demopraxy", which involves the involvement of public and private organizations, representatives of the productive and agricultural world, representatives of institutions and culture. Villa Manin will therefore be a place for the exercise of demopraxy, a neologism coined in Cittadellarte to define the process of social transformation through the direct involvement of all the associations and working groups of a territory. In particular, for the selection of the artists called to dialogue with the themes and representative instances of Pistoletto's works (including Ryts Monet, Caretto - Spagna, Collettivo Robida, Luigi Coppola, Chiara Sgaramella, Noor Abed, Nico Angiuli, Tiziana and Isabella Pers, PLoT (2021 - Colette Lewis, Lennon Taylor, Elinor River),, Michele Spangaro) Villa Manin collaborated with the curatorial committee of Unidee, Residency Program (Cittadellarte's over twenty-year residency program) composed of Juan E. Sandoval, COL artist, Andy Abbot, UK curator, Alessandra Saviotti and Beatrice Catanzaro, while for the program of meetings that will accompany the exhibition the collaboration was with Giacomo Bassmaji.
Piazzale Manin 10, Udine, Italy
Opening hours
opens - closes | last entry | |
monday | Closed now | |
tuesday | 10:00 - 19:00 | |
wednesday | 10:00 - 19:00 | |
thursday | 10:00 - 19:00 | |
friday | 10:00 - 19:00 | |
saturday | 10:00 - 19:00 | |
sunday | 10:00 - 19:00 |
Partial closure of rooms from 9 April to 24 May 2024
Park: from 09:00 to 17:00 (last entry 16:30)
Monday closed
Extraordinary openings 2024: Monday 1 January, Monday 1 April, 24 and 31 December closing at 2pm – closed 25 December
Guided tours
April, May, September, October, November, December: Saturday and Sunday at 3pm
June, July and August: Saturday and Sunday at 10.30am
Special events: 30 and 31 March, 1, 25 and 30 April and 1 May at 3pm
From 13 December to 2 March 2025
The Earth lasts longer than empires
MUSE - Museum of Science, Trento
From 26 May to 31 December 2025
From the 1960s to the beginning of the 21st century
Roberto Casamonti Collection, Florence
With the card: museum + exhibitions 10.00 €