Roberto Floreani's Thresholds on display at the Diocesan Museum in Vicenza

The Diocesan Museum of Vicenza is hosting, from March 8 to June 8, 2025, Roberto Floreani ’s (Venice, 1956) solo exhibition Soglie: Tempo del prima - Tempo del poi, a site-specific project curated by Msgr. Francesco Gasparini, with the support of the Giuseppe Roi Foundation and the patronage of local and cultural institutions, including the Province and City of Vicenza, the Biblical Festival and the Accademia Olimpica. The event celebrates the 40th anniversary of Floreani’s first solo exhibition, which took place in 1985, and comes at a time of profound evolution in his artistic career. Soglie takes the form of a conceptual exploration of the boundary between the visible and the invisible, the earthly and the transcendent.

The very title of the exhibition recalls the concept of threshold, understood as a place of passage, transformation and reflection. An idea that is developed on several levels, both artistic and theoretical. On the formal level, the works on display reveal Floreani’s unmistakable painting technique, characterized by a refined layering that can reach up to thirty overlapping levels, giving a distinctive depth and luminosity. This method, combined with precise geometric rigor, is ideally linked to the Italian abstractionist tradition, inaugurated by Giacomo Balla with his Compenetrazioni iridescenti in 1912.

On the theoretical level, the exhibition finds a link to the thought of philosopher Jean Baudrillard, according to whom abstraction possesses a heroic history that guarantees its continued relevance. In fact, Thresholds incorporates theological and philosophical references, in keeping with the Jubilee of 2025. In fact, the concept of the threshold is central to the thinking of bishop and theologian Klaus Hemmerle, who argued that theology, without a philosophical basis, cannot exist. According to Hemmerle, the threshold is the point of suspension between time and eternity, between the earthly condition and the search for a higher dimension. Floreani’s exhibition thus transforms the exhibition space into a place of meditation, a ridge between the time of before and the time of after, between the project and its completed realization, between the chaos of origin and the order of creation.

A dialogue with the museum and with time

The exhibition develops in dialogue with the historical section of the Diocesan Museum, creating a visual and conceptual contamination that accentuates the tension between past and present. Reinforcing this interaction is the presence of a series of artist’s carpets, made especially for the event, which expand the installation dimension of the exhibition itinerary.

In addition to the Thresholds, two pictorial series elaborated by Floreani in the last five years will also be on display: the Constellations and the Rhythms. In addition, a central role will be occupied by the large installation composed of twenty-one works, a project in continuous evolution since 2013, already presented in prestigious venues such as the Centro Internazionale di Palazzo Te in Mantua, the Gran Guardia in Verona and the Musei Civici in Padua. The installation, enriched for the occasion by new Thresholds, represents a kind of journey in the artist’s research, a path of transformation that reflects the flow of time and experience.

A message of introspection and spirituality

Floreani has often emphasized how the work of art can contain a message of a spiritual nature, opposing the superficiality of contemporary materialism. The reflective dimension of the exhibition is deepened in the texts in the catalog edited by Msgr. Francesco Gasparini and Luca Siniscalco, to which is added a dialogue between the artist and Luigi Codemo, director of the Galleria d’Arte Sacra dei Contemporanei in Milan. During the three-month opening, the exhibition will be accompanied by a series of collateral events involving the public in meetings on art, philosophy and theology, as well as concerts and musical insights. The program, curated by the University Consortium and the Olympic Academy, will also include guided tours with the artist present, offering a unique opportunity to directly understand his creative process.

The opening is scheduled for Saturday, March 8, 2025, at 4 p.m., at the Salone Lazzati in the Social Works Building, Cathedral Square. After the opening event, the public will have free access to the exhibition from 6 to 8 p.m., with the opportunity to meet the artist.

The exhibition will be open for viewing with the following hours: until March 31: Monday to Sunday, 2 to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 to 5 p.m.; from April 1: Monday to Sunday, 2 to 6 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 to 6 p.m.

Notes on the artist

Roberto Floreani began his exhibition career in 1981, after graduating from the University of Padua. Since 1985 he has mounted over ninety solo exhibitions, twenty-two of which have been hosted in museum venues, both in Italy and abroad. These include the Civic Museums of Como, Ravenna and Zagreb (1994-1995), the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan (1999), the Museums of Aschaffenburg, Gelsenkirchen and Ljubljana (2007), the State Museums of San Marino (2011), the MaGa Museum in Gallarate (2011), the International Center of Palazzo Te in Mantua (2013), the Piano Nobile of the Gran Guardia in Verona (2014) and the Civic Museums of Padua (2016). In 2004 he was among those selected for the XIV Quadriennale in Rome, while in 2009 he represented Italy in the National Pavilion at the LIII Venice Biennale. Today he is considered a point of reference for his generation, with works included in the permanent collections of numerous museums and publications published by leading Italian publishers. In 2024 he was awarded the title of Artist of the Year by the specialist magazine Artuu.

A scholar and enthusiast of Futurism, he supports the figure of the artist-theorist according to Boccioni’s vision. He has published numerous essays, including I Futuristi e la Grande Guerra and Umberto Boccioni, Arte-Vita, both finalists for the Acqui Storia Prize in 2015 and 2018, respectively. In 2021, with De Piante Editore, he brought out Abstraction as Resistance, the first analysis on Abstraction written by an artist since Carlo Belli’s Kn (1935). He has curated several historical exhibitions, including one dedicated to Futurist Groups (1999), Futurist Sculpture (2009, in collaboration with the Centennial Committee of the Ministry of Culture) and Italian Pop Art in 2024. He collaborates with several universities and writes for publications such as Domus, Arte In, Zeta - Rivista d’Arte Visiva, Pangea.it, Artuu.it and Artslife.it. For years he has edited the weekly column Antineutrale for T - Quotidiano del Trentino.

Roberto Floreani's Thresholds on display at the Diocesan Museum in Vicenza

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