An explosion. A silence. Then the rain of seeds. It is from this ancestral, together industrial and organic rhythm that Pastorale, the site-specific installation by Nico Vascellari for the Sala delle Cariatidi of Palazzo Reale, comes to life, on the occasion of Milano Art Week 2025. An exhibition promoted by the Municipality of Milan - Culture, curated by Sergio Risaliti and produced by Palazzo Reale and Codalunga. Free entry from April 1st to June 2nd.
After the major exhibition Sludge at Forte Belvedere and the performance Alessio at the Salone dei Cinquecento, Nico Vascellari returns with a project that delves into collective memory to imagine new forms of regeneration. A powerful and visionary reflection on the unity of opposites, where nature and artifice, destruction and rebirth, personal and political merge into a single poetic action.
In the center of the room – marked by the bombings of 1943 – a large mechanical steel sculpture lies on a bed of earth. At regular intervals, it emits a thunderous burst: a disruptive gesture, followed by an unexpected sweetness. Seeds of invasive plants – tenacious weeds, the kind that no one wants – fall to the ground. And there they take root, grow, multiply. It is a living, self-sustaining ecosystem that transforms the architectural wound into an untamed, wild, resilient garden.
“I remember as a child I swallowed a cherry pit…”, confides Vascellari. “I was afraid it would grow in my stomach, pushing its way out of my mouth. Now this image seems to me an ideal: nature invading us, transforming us, saving us.”
Curated by Sergio Risaliti and produced in collaboration with Codalunga, Pastorale is more than an exhibition: it is a sensory experience, a collective ritual that overlaps past and present, silence and sound, destruction and rebirth. The title, with its idyllic and bucolic flavor, seems almost discordant with the still visible wounds of the Sala. But it is precisely from this contrast that the strength of the work emerges. Like a new beginning that takes root in the rubble, Pastorale opens a passage between memory and future, between nature and artifice.
Vascellari, raised among the mountains and forests of Vittorio Veneto, stages a narrative where nature is not a backdrop, but an active and resistant protagonist. The seeds fallen on the ground set up in the room are not decoration: they are action, promise, transformation. Pastorale engages with a long tradition of political and visceral art, and inherits the legacy of a powerful gesture: here, in 1953, Picasso's Guernica was exhibited. Today, the spirit of that denunciation survives in Vascellari's poetics, which combines historical memory, contemporary urgency, and poetic tension.
But Pastorale is not just an installation. Even before its debut, it invaded the city through the boop, fantastic creatures born from the artist's stroke, appearing on maxi-led screens and teaser campaigns that announced the exhibition with an "alien" gaze. The boop, part of the visual identity designed by Giga Design Studio, will also be present in the exhibition's bookshop, designed with NM3, and will become collectible items in special editions created by Codalunga.
In line with the work's philosophy, nothing will be wasted: every material used for the installation will be recovered, reused, given back. The land will return to the earth, the plants will find new life outside the museum walls, the furnishings will take their place in Codalunga's new headquarters. Pastorale does not end: it continues to live, grow, transform. Like a seed sprouting unexpectedly.
Codalunga is the pulsating heart of Nico Vascellari's artistic research, a creative laboratory born in 2005 in Vittorio Veneto with the aim of shaking up the local cultural scene. Located in the historic center of Serravalle, this independent space has become over the years a reference point for contemporary art, hosting events, performances, and productions with international artists. Codalunga is a meeting point, experimentation, and rootedness: a cultural stronghold that combines avant-garde and community, memory and future, with projects ranging from visual art to music, fashion, and design, without ever losing its connection to the territory.
