Minimum Monument
in MEMORIE DEL SOTTOSUOLO

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Opening: Saturday, 15 November 2025
Period: 15 November 2025 - 6 April 2026
Venue: Museo di Science e Archeologia
Fondazione Museo Civico di Rovereto
Address: Borgo Santa Caterina 41 – 38068 Rovereto (TN), Italy
Curators: Roberta Bonazza and Tiziano Straffelini.

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The exhibition proposes a dialogue between science and art through different forms of memory — from monuments, with the video installation Minimum Monument: art as emergency, to the geological memory of ice, vital in the context of the climate crisis. In Memorie del Sottosuolo, within the glacial environment, my intervention converses with the scientific section, alongside international artists Pieter Vermeersch (quarry), Federico Ferrarini (cave), Arthur Duff (volcano), and a painting from the museum’s collection (landslide).

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EXHIBITION PROJECT

UPSIDE DOWN LANDSCAPE:
TREE PORTRAITS,
MEMORIES OF THE SUBSOIL

Museo della Città, Palazzo Sichardt
Museo di Scienze e Archeologia, Palazzo Parolari

Curated by
Roberta Bonazza and Tiziano Straffelini

Promoted by the Fondazione Museo Civico Rovereto

July-November 2025

An exhibition that blends art and science, investigating the landscape in both its visible, aesthetic form and its hidden, structural geology beneath the surface. Upside Down Landscape: Tree Portraits, Memories of the Subsoil presents a vision of the landscape that goes beyond the traditional separation between the “above” (the visible) and the “below” (the subterranean), showing how the two elements are intrinsically interconnected. The exhibition places the landscape
at its core, metaphorically turning it upside down, while establishing connections between the language of art and the language of science, fostering a complex path of knowledge.

The exhibition is divided across two complementary venues. The Tree Portraits section at Palazzo Sichardt showcases the artistic element, while the Memories of the Subsoil section at Palazzo Parolari presents the scientific aspect. In both areas, there will be a balance of artistic and scientific elements, with a predominance of the artistic in the Tree Portraits section and a focus on science in the Memories of the Subsoil section.

What will be on display at each venue?

At Palazzo Sichardt, the Tree Portraits exhibition features approximately forty paintings, ranging from the late 19th century up to 1989—chosen as a symbolic cut-off point for the “short century.” The curator has selected works that explore the figuration of trees, where the plant element becomes the main or sole subject of the landscape. The trees in the exhibition are, in essence, portraits, with the artist infusing a sense of intimacy, even a psychological dimension, into the representation, much like in the portrait of a human figure. Trees—perhaps even more than flowers, traditionally seen as symbols of domesticity and transience—symbolically enter our lives, becoming witnesses and guardians of a mood, a memory, or a place.

Works by the following artists will be featured: Giovanni Segantini (Comune di Arco), Vittore Grubicy (Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna di Ca' Pesaro), Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, Gottfried Hofer (Private Collection, Arco), Louis Sèraphine, Umberto Moggioli (Fondazione Caritro, Trento), Guido Marusigg (Copercini and Giuseppin Collections, Arquà Petrarca), Teodoro Wolf Ferrari (Reve Art, Bologna), Giorgio de Chirico, Tullio Garbari (Superintendency for Cultural Heritage), Virgilio Guidi (MAMBo, Bologna), Attilio Lasta (Comune di Villalagarina), Luigi Bonazza (Private Collection, Trento), Hans Lietzmann (Private Collection, Torbole), Guido Polo (Polo Collection, Trento), Carlo Zinelli (Fondazione Carlo Zinelli, Verona), Gigiotti Zanini, Remo Wolf, Dario Wolf (Private Collection, Trento), Carlo Carrà (Fondazione Ferrero, Alba), Paolo Vallorz (Comune di Cles), Mario Mertz (Castello di Rivoli), Gino Rossi (Galleria Lo Scudo), Federica Galli, Vittorio Mascalchi (Mascalchi Collection), Mario Schifano (Fondazione Mario Schifano), Bruno Caruso, Maria Stoffella Fendros (Fendros Collection, Rovereto), Carlo Mattioli, Ottone Rosai, and Tullio Pericoli.

As visitors walk through the exhibition, they will encounter an immersive "forest of portraits," featuring tree portraits by Egon Schiele, Vincent van Gogh, Pieter Bruegel, Pablo Picasso, Edward Munch, Gustav Klimt, Albrecht Dürer, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, František Kupka, Ferdinand Hodler, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Auguste Cézanne, and Caspar David Friedrich. This virtual installation brings together the tree portraits of artists who have shaped the history of art between the 19th and 20th centuries. The scientific section of the exhibition at Palazzo Sichardt will explore, for selected works, unique and curious aspects of the life of trees, with insights from the museum's botany section.

At Palazzo Parolari, the Memories of the Subsoil exhibition invites visitors to embark on a true journey into the darkness (the entire exhibition will be held in the dark to evoke the underground). The geological environments chosen to tell the story of the "below" are highly diverse, as are the fascinating samples on display. The selection of environments offers visitors the opportunity to “travel” through the subsoil, exploring its materials and learning about it through text-based interpretations. The curators have chosen to focus on ecological themes that resonate with the present day. Starting from the scientific data contextualized by the displayed materials, the memories brought to light are of utmost relevance today: memories of ice, fire, water, abandonment, and historical memory.

The selected environments are as follows: Glacier environment (glacial core samples), Volcano environment (lava samples), Cave environment (stalactites and stalagmites), Quarry environment (marble samples), Landslide environment (Limestone from Lavini di Marco) For the ice environment, the SAT (Società Alpinisti Tridentini) will be involved. The artistic intervention in dialogue with the scientific section reflects contemporary artists’ use of specific materials, elevating them beyond mere physical objects to open new reflections and perceptions about our present.

The selected contemporary artists are internationally renowned and include: Néle Azevedo (for the ice environment), Pieter Vermeersch (for the quarry environment), Federico Ferrarini (for the cave environment), Arthur Duff (for the volcano environment), a painting from the museum's collection (for the landslide environment).

Curators:
Roberta Bonazza
Tiziano Straffelini