From Dec. 13, 2025 to March 15, 2026, the Art Station and the CaMuC Museum in Ulassai will welcome The Breath of a Journey, an exhibition that aims to bring Albrecht Dürer and Maria Lai into dialogue. Although five centuries apart, the two artists share a profound attention to the expressive value of the sign and its ability to evoke meanings.
Curated by Marco Peri and Luca Baroni, the exhibition offers the opportunity to take a close look at some of the most important masterpieces of Dürer’s graphic production from private collections. An absolute protagonist of the European Renaissance, the German artist was not only a master of engraving, but also an innovator capable of combining the Gothic heritage with the new humanistic sensibility. Extraordinary formal precision and profound psychological investigation emerge in his works, elements that have made a lasting impact on the history of the image. His celebrated etchings, including Melencolia I, The Horseman, Death, The Devil, The Prodigal Son, and The Sea Monster, reveal a close look at nature and the mysteries of the human soul.
In dialogue with this visionary universe is a selection of works by Maria Lai, a Sardinian artist whose research, strongly rooted in the archaic traditions of Sardinia, opens up to a poetic and universal dimension. The Nativities, Stitched and Ceramic Books, Breads and White Thread Stations of the Cross testify to a sensitivity capable of transforming simple materials into forms of intense symbolic charge. His work introduces a contemporary language that resonates with Dürer’s formal rigor.
The dialogue between the two artists focuses on the themes that give the exhibition its title: breath, understood as vital breath and inner rhythm, and travel, conceived as a physical and spiritual experience, an opening to discovery and a space for transformation and revelation. Through this comparison, the exhibition aims to bring out unexpected connections that bring back to the center fundamental questions of art, such as mystery, spirituality, and the relationship with time and imagination. The exhibition aims to relate a leading figure of the European Renaissance to one of the most significant voices in contemporary art. More than thirty original works by Dürer allow us to delve into the complexity of his language, while Maria Lai’s works introduce a poetic resonance that expands and renews the reading of his production in a broader and international perspective.
The exhibition is a collaboration between Marco Peri, Director of the Art Station, and Luca Baroni, Director of the North Marche Museum Network and scholar of the history of graphic art. The CaMuC Museum and the Ulassai Art Station, places with a strong identity and dense with memory, welcome this artistic and human journey that invites the public not only to observation, but also to deep involvement.
“The Art Station Foundation is preparing to celebrate 20 years since its opening in 2026. It will be an important year, marked by new exhibitions and special initiatives dedicated to Maria Lai. The exhibition itinerary of the permanent collection is constantly being renewed to enhance the depth and richness of her artistic legacy. Together with the guides of the Art Station and the CAMUC museum, we present to the public knowledge paths that deepen the artist’s life and work, fostering a broader understanding of her work,” said Marco Peri, Director of the Art Station.
Promoted by the Municipality of Ulassai, it is produced by the Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte, with the organizational support of Comediarting and the collaboration of Arthemisia for communication and promotion. The project is funded by the European Union through NextGenerationEU, as part of the PNRR | National Recovery and Resilience Plan, dedicated to the cultural, social and economic regeneration of villages.
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| In Sardinia, in Ulassai, an exhibition places Albrecht Dürer and Maria Lai in dialogue because of the evocative value of the sign |
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