From October 17 to December 19, 2025 BKV Fine Art in Milan will host the exhibition Bernardo Strozzi - Piero Manzoni. Presenza Assenza (Presence Absence), proposing an unprecedented juxtaposition of some twenty-five works that places two artists who are distant in time and seemingly irreconcilable in dialogue: on the one hand the rich and vibrant Baroque painting of Bernardo Strozzi - the “presence” evoked by the title - and on the other the Achromes of Piero Manzoni, made with materials as diverse as wrinkled canvas, kaolin, stitched cloth, fiberglass, polystyrene or absorbent cotton, the expression of a pictorial language reduced to degree zero, the symbol of “absence.”
Separated by nearly four centuries, with opposite origins - Strozzi born “from poor yes honored relatives,” Manzoni from an aristocratic family - the two artists shared a strong independence of thought. Both interrupted the studies they had undertaken (Strozzi in Letters, Manzoni in Law) and trained as self-taught: the former left his master’s workshop to enter a convent, earning the nicknames “Cappuccino” and “Genoese Priest”; the latter left the university to attend the studios of painter friends linked to the nuclear movement. For both, art is an inner energy, not subordinated to academic paths, capable of making a lasting impression.
On this interweaving of similarities and differences the Milan exhibition is built, articulated in about twenty-five works.
The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Piero Manzoni Foundation, represented by Hauser & Wirth.
The catalog - with critical texts by Flaminio Gualdoni and Gabriele Reina - reproduces all the works on display.
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| BKV Fine Art in Milan juxtaposes Bernardo Strozzi with Piero Manzoni in an unprecedented comparison |
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