Five large architectural pavilions, designed by Axel Vervoordt and architect Tatsuro Miki in collaboration with Jorgen Hempel and built using solely organic materials, transform the Sala Gondola on the ground floor of the Palazzo. embodiment of proportional features for visitors to experience as they walk through the empty spaces.

The corridor behind the Sala Gondola presents a series of gigantic photographs of medieval cathedrals by Markus Brunetti, a large sculpture by Renato Nicolodi, an imposing installation by Heinz Mack and a video by Susan Kleinberg, in dialogue with a sculpture by Eduardo Chillida.

An installation and performance by Shuji Mukai’s entitled “Space of Signs Selfie Studio” occupies the room leading to the upper level, examining how visitors experience artistic spaces in the age of ubiquitous self-representation and social media.  The mezzanine shows a unedited sculpture by Antony Gormley who claims that The body is itself the first form of architecture, in juxtaposition with a painting by Anselm Kiefer where like in the cosmos, it’s always construction, demolition, reconstruction.

The Piano Nobile, or Fortuny Floor, is filled with a variety of architectural works, including a model by Le Corbusier, Erwin Heerich, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov and Richard Meier. These sit amongst many forms of artistic investigations of proportions by minimalist artists and ZERO artists from the 20th century, juxtaposed with explorative architectural capriccio’s by Old Masters.

This room also presents a large ‘ideal’ library with antiquarian editions of treatises by Vitruvius, Dürer, Alberti, Serlio, Palladio and more.  Alongside this laboratory of proportional quests, a room with a new video work by Hans Op de Beeck ‘Night Time (entended)’ and two ‘silent rooms’: works by Anish Kapoor juxtaposed with a splendid sculpture by Alberto Giacometti and another room with Fred Sandback in combination with Raoul De Keyser and Brice Marden.

The fourth room is being dedicated to proportions in the body, along with a sculpture by Berlinde De Bruyckere, a newly commissioned work by Marta Dell’Angelo, a specially commissioned video by Kurt Ralske  and a video piece by Henri Foucault.   The workshop of Mariano Fortuny with his original paintings on the wall presents his research on theatre models with a work by Anne-Karin Furunes specifically conceived for the exhibition and a sculpture by Marisa Merz.

The second floor presents mainly white works by artists such as Ad Ryman, Agnes Martin, Kees Goudzwaard, Ann Veronica Janssens and Norio Imai and a series of drawings by Massimo Bartolini, a sculpture by Lucia Bru and a mural drawing by Sol Lewitt. In the annex rooms:, a commission by the German Otto Boll and a neon work by Francesco Candeloro.

The top floor, with its wabi-pavilion, concentrates on proportions in the cosmos and intergalaxies, meditation and silence, featuring a work by Morandi, some Korean Tansaekwa art by artists such as Chang-Sup Chung and , as well as a work by Jef Verheyen and a Gutai painting by Kazuo Shiraga.  For this floor, Marina Abramovic has created a site-specific sound installation ‘Ten thousand stars’, where the audience can embark, with headsets, in  asonic journey into the universe, facing the infinity of the night sky.The installation is also an open invitation to think about the unanswered question of whether there is a higher purpose behind the order of things and proportions that regulate the universe,and how human beings locate themselves within this order.

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Curated by Daniela Ferretti and Axel Vervoordt
Co-produced with Axel and May Vervoordt Foundation
With of support of AXEL VERVOORDT GALLERY