As of September 15, 2025, Sliding, the permanent exhibition project that enhances the masterpieces of Unipol Group ’s artistic collection at CUBO ’s headquarters at Unipol Tower in Milan, welcomes a new work: Germoglio by Gigi Guadagnucci, a marble sculpture created in 1991, which takes the place of Beverly Pepper’s Virgo, Rectangle Twist. The title Sliding - translatable as “sliding, mobile” - was chosen precisely to emphasize the dynamic nature of this installation. Indeed, the intent is for the works in the collection to rotate over time, offering the public an ever-renewing journey. The transition from Pepper’s work to Guadagnucci’s represents the spirit of the project: an exhibition that is constantly evolving, to establish new relationships between different languages, materials and eras, and to restore the infinite variety with which reality can be perceived.
After receiving a solid training in the sculpture workshops of Massa, in 1936 Guadagnucci moved first to Grenoble and then to Paris. It was the French capital, where he would live for more than two decades beginning in the 1950s, that offered him fertile contact with the artistic and spiritual currents of twentieth-century Europe. Although confronted with the avant-garde, the artist remained tied to marble, a material that allowed him to maintain a dialogue with the classical tradition and Apuan craftsmanship. His research, while personal and autonomous, finds its fulcrum in his relationship with nature.
Germoglio belongs to the mature phase of the artist’s production, in which form becomes more essential. The work, impressive in size (162x58x47 cm), combines lightness and dynamism, combining abstraction and figuration and finding a balance between form, space and rhythm. Reflected here is Guadagnucci’s desire to renew the use of marble with a modern language that can also dialogue with the sensibility of contemporary audiences.
Instead, the core of the other works on display remains unchanged: Features of Italy (1961) by Larry Rivers, a map of Italy reinterpreted in an ironic key; PP_T011.A12 - 3D Scans Series (2016) by Quayola, which investigates the boundary between physical and digital through the technological reworking of classical forms; DiecialCUBO (2022) by Stefano Ronci, an installation that weaves together contemporary materials and languages, placing the relationship between work, space and viewer at the center; and finally Artificial Botany - Unseen Flora (2023) by the fuse* collective, a series of visionary images that unite natural and digital, real and artificial.
Although they belong to different periods, languages and materials-from marble to steel, collage to neon, and multimedia installations-all the works dialogue with each other. Each work retains its own autonomy, but at the same time contributes to building a choral discourse that crosses different expressive codes and opens up new interpretative possibilities.
Pictured: Gigi Guadagnucci, Germoglio (1985-1991; marble, 150 x 50 x 33 cm)
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| Milan, a sculpture by Gigi Guadagnucci in the new display of the Unipol Tower collection |
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