The Accademia Carrara in Bergamo is launching *Figures in the Landscape*, a new multi-year project curated by Maria Luisa Pacelli and Elena Volpato and dedicated to contemporary sculpture. The initiative involves the creation of site-specific works designed for the museum’s outdoor spaces, to be permanently installed in the PwC Gardens and intended to enrich the institution’s collection. The project stems from the idea of the garden as a place populated by figures, drawing on a tradition that, from the Renaissance onward, has seen statues, deities, heroes, allegorical figures, and fantastical creatures bring green spaces to life in a continuous dialogue between nature and art. “Figures in the Landscape ” aims to reinterpret this legacy through the work of three contemporary Italian artists who, despite coming from different backgrounds, share a profound reflection on figurative sculpture and its relationship to tradition.
Kicking off the project is Chiara Camoni (Piacenza, 1974), the featured artist of the Italian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, with *La Forza*, a sculptural group inspired by the Tarot card of the same name. The work is the first commission for “Figure nel Paesaggio” and was created specifically for the PwC Gardens of the Accademia Carrara. The sculpture consists of two figures— a woman and a lioness—that reinterpret the iconographyof the eleventh Major Arcana, establishing a dialogue with the cards from the Colleoni deck preserved in the museum. While in the historical deck Strength is depicted as a man facing a lion, and in the later Marseille Tarot it takes the form of a woman dominating the animal, Chiara Camoni transcends the idea of conflict by transforming the two protagonists into a deeply united pair.
The woman and the lioness are shaped from the same material and bear the marks of their shared origin. They are no longer adversaries, but creatures born of the same substance, a symbol of a strength that is expressed not through domination, but through harmony and sharing. The central element of the work is black earth, a material that evokes depth, primordial energy, and the memory of nature. The figures seem to emerge directly from the garden soil, almost generated by the very earth that sustains them. Between the woman’s hands and the lioness’s mouth, a single fragment of material represents the point of contact and union between the two. The surface of the sculptures is characterized by a vibrant and dynamic modeling that evokes some key developments in early 20th-century Italian sculpture, from Medardo Rosso to Leonardo Bistolfi. The solidity of the forms contrasts with the lightness of the surfaces, animated by reliefs reminiscent of petals and blossoms: in the woman’s hands, they transform into flowers, while between the lioness’s teeth, they take on the appearance of fragments of creative matter.
With *La Forza*, Chiara Camoni identifies strength with nature’s creative gesture, the primordial principle from which every being takes shape. The artist thus subverts the traditional meaning of power and domination, proposing instead a reflection on the awareness of belonging to a single natural reality. The gaze of the two figures draws the visitor into a visual dialogue that involves the artwork, the landscape, and the observer. It is precisely this ability to interweave iconographic references, material exploration, and contemporary sensibility that led the Accademia Carrara to entrust Chiara Camoni with the project’s first commission.
The work becomes part of the museum’s permanent collection thanks to the contribution of PwC, after which the Museum Gardens are named. The collaboration between the Accademia Carrara and PwC exemplifies the synergy between culture and business, aimed at promoting artistic heritage, fostering cultural innovation, and creating new spaces for the community to enjoy.
“I have a young friend who reads Tarot cards. Her name is Anita. She shows me the Strength card: it depicts a woman closing (or perhaps opening?) the mouth of a lion (or lioness?). I try to sculpt the two figures, starting from that gesture, which is so powerful,” says Chiara Camoni. “Gradually, they begin to detach, to separate: I discover that the hand and the mouth are made of the same material, which blooms and sizzles at the same time.”
“With *Figures in the Landscape*,” says Maria Luisa Pacelli, Director of the Accademia Carrara Foundation and co-curator of the exhibition, “Accademia Carrara is launching a commissioning project that expands the museum’s collection beyond the exhibition halls, entrusting some of Italy’s most significant contemporary artists with the creation of works conceived specifically for the PwC Gardens and intended to become permanent fixtures there. Chiara Camoni’s *La Forza* inaugurates this initiative in a particularly significant way. The work engages in dialogue with the Tarot collection preserved by the Carrara, which was recently the focus of a major exhibition, while also interpreting some of the themes that run through the entire project: the presence of the figure in the landscape, the relationship between form and nature, and the capacity of images from the past to generate new visions. In Camoni’s reinterpretation, “strength” does not equate to domination or conflict, but rather to the recognition of a shared belonging to the same generative matter. It is this ability to connect iconographic memory, sculptural gesture, and the natural world that led us to choose her work to inaugurate *Figures in the Landscape*. A work that demonstrates how historical heritage is not merely an object of conservation and study, but can continue to generate new forms, new images, and new possibilities for interpretation.”
“In this work, Chiara Camoni has succeeded in representing inner strength—a strength made up of awareness and delicacy, without any trace of violence or aggression,” adds co-curator Elena Volpato. “The struggle between animal instinct and human courage, which dominated the ancient iconography of the Strength card (No. XI), is reimagined as a harmonious relationship between human intelligence and animal sensitivity—qualities inherent in both figures. The work succeeds in expressing all of this thanks to the unique relationship between the essential lines of the forms and the vibrating nature of the sculptural surface—a relationship that highlights a connection to the art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “I believe there could be no better continuity with the historical trajectory of the Carrara collections, which pauses precisely where the memories inscribed in Camoni’s work originate,”
“As a co-founding member of the Fondazione Accademia Carrara,” states Chiara Carotenuto, Partner at PwC Italy and head of PwC’s communications and cultural initiatives, “PwC has been committed for years to supporting projects that make this museum increasingly open, inclusive, and connected to its community. The PwC Gardens were created precisely with this goal in mind: to be a space where nature, art, and people come together. The arrival of Chiara Camoni’s work represents a new and important milestone, as it poetically intertwines history, landscape, and shared responsibility—values that also guide our commitment to the local community.”
|
| Chiara Camoni at the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo: Her work *Forza* kicks off the contemporary sculpture project |
Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.
IT
FR
DE
ES
CN