From Nov. 14, 2025, to Jan. 18, 2026, Palazzo della Ragione in Bergamo will host That Person’s Heaven, a solo exhibition by Matt Mullican curated by Stefano Raimondi and produced by The Blank Contemporary Art. The exhibition, with free admission, marks the return to Italy of one of the most relevant contemporary artists and inaugurates the 15th edition of ArtDate, the Contemporary Art Festival supported by the Region of Lombardy and the City of Bergamo, which this year has silence as its main theme.
Born in Santa Monica, California, in 1951, Mullican lives and works between New York and Berlin. Since the 1970s he has developed an articulate system of symbols, pictograms and color codes that reflects his interest in the organization and sharing of knowledge, language and meaning. His color map associates green with the material, blue with the everyday, yellow with ideas, black and white with language, and red with the subjective dimension. This structure becomes a way for the artist to shape a personal cosmos, a conceptual grid capable of interpreting every aspect of human experience. His works are in the collections of the world’s most important museums, from MoMA and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York to the Tate in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. After a retrospective at Pirelli Hangar Bicocca in 2018, Mullican returns to exhibit in an Italian institution with a new installation designed specifically for the spaces of Palazzo della Ragione.
The title of the exhibition refers to That Person, a character Mullican embodies during hypnotic sessions and who represents an alter ego distinct from the artist himself. That figure uses the artist’s body and voice, expressing himself with gestures and words that oscillate between the childlike and the lucid, between chaos and a startling awareness. Also made in a state of hypnosis is the work at the center of the exhibition, a monumental 16x16-meter square grid composed of thirty-two works of equal size, half in black and white and half in red. Mullican uses hypnotic trance as a tool to explore altered states of consciousness and create performative experiences that transcend verbal language. In this context, silence capable of amplifying inner inquiry and becoming a space of suspension from which images, symbols and unconscious memories emerge. Hypnotic practice demonstrates how art can become a means of exploring the mind, opening access to deep perceptual dimensions that are difficult to reach in the waking state.
According to the artist, everything happens in the mind and all images have a mental origin. The black and white side of the work represents everyday experience, the details and emotions that make up everyday life, often meant to be forgotten. The red side, on the other hand, concerns the big picture of existence and confronts themes such as heaven, God, demons and angels, reflecting on what precedes birth and follows death. These are two aspects of the same narrative, addressing fundamental questions about origin, the meaning of life events, and the ultimate destiny of human beings.
Hypnosis, within the strict grid system, acts as a rupture element and introduces the unpredictable. This tension between order and chaos generates a primal energy, as if the signs produced in the hypnotic state hold a more authentic truth than that attainable while awake. The process thus becomes a metaphor for the artistic condition, which according to Mullican arises not so much from an act of will as from a willingness to allow images, languages and visions to pass through us. Dedicated events for younger audiences are also planned during the exhibition period. On Nov. 29, Dec. 13 and 20, and Jan. 10 at 3 p.m., there will be free workshops for children ages five to 10, curated by The Blank’s educational services. The exhibition will be accompanied by a bilingual catalog published by Silvana Editoriale, with texts by Stefano Raimondi, artistic director of The Blank, and Roberta Tenconi, curator at Pirelli Hangar Bicocca in Milan.
The realization of the exhibition was made possible through a partnership with Aquafil S.p.A., one of the world’s leading producers of synthetic fibers and recognized for ECONYL® yarn, obtained by recycling waste and refuse, and Radici Pietro Industries & Brands S.p.A., a historic Italian manufacturer of textile flooring. The two companies share a commitment to sustainability and cutting-edge research, values that are also reflected in the exhibition project. A press preview of the exhibition is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025 at 11 a.m., while the official opening to the public will be held the same day at 6 p.m.
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| Matt Mullican explores the boundary between consciousness and unconscious in exhibition in Bergamo, Italy |
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