From Oct. 3 to Nov. 30, 2025, the Antonio Verolino Gallery in Modena is hosting La natura delle cose, the first Modena solo show of Maurizio Donzelli, an artist among the protagonists of Italian art since the 1990s. The exhibition, curated by Lorenzo Madaro, offers a systematic synthesis of the artist’s most recent research, presenting works focused on the relationship between visual language, perception and interaction with the exhibition space. Donzelli, born in Brescia in 1958, lives and works in the Lombard city, where he has been conducting for decades a rigorous and independent research, developed far from the logic of fashion and the dictates of the market.
The core of his artistic practice revolves around the investigation of the nature of things, understood as a process of reflection and observation that simultaneously involves the design, the making and the viewer’s perception of the work. For Donzelli, drawing and sign constitute a fundamental prerequisite that is activated in the very dimension of making, configuring itself as a tool for conceptual formalization. This perspective has found confirmation in numerous museum exhibitions and monographic publications, which have analyzed the various ridges of the master’s research and documented his evolution in recent decades.
Donzelli’s work is situated within a historical context that, from the 1990s to the present, has seen Italy as a protagonist of sophisticated experimental experiences. His research, however, stands out for its self-sufficiency of discourse and conceptual and operational innovation, to the point of being fundamental for understanding that period, now ready for accurate historicization. Although often linked to experiences in kinetic art and research on visual perception, Donzelli shifts the discourse to a more complex realm, where natural elements and their representation are intertwined in a new imagery, in which the very nature of things becomes both subject and object of inquiry.
In an age characterized by the hyper-production of images and the instantaneous dissemination of content through digital devices, the artist’s work is distinguished by the choice of a meditative and philosophical approach. The work becomes a place where thought, action and perception converge, generating an experience that simultaneously involves the artist and the viewer. Doing and thinking, designing and perceiving constitute the dual ridges on which much of Donzelli’s work develops, and he has always operated autonomously, focusing on exhibition projects capable of testing the substance of his artistic research.
The Modena exhibition also documents Donzelli’s constant attention to the theme of variation. In the cycles on display, from the iconic Mirrors to the Drawings of the Almost, to a nucleus of works entitled Descartes made especially for the solo show, the artist constantly introduces differences and deviations within formal rules and unities. His studios in Brescia thus take on a dual function: not only places of production, but also spaces for experimentation and questioning of the method itself. The exhibition offers a coherent overview of the last phase of Donzelli’s career, confirming the continuity and depth of his research. The catalog publication, with an essay by Lorenzo Madaro, professor of contemporary art history at the Brera Academy in Milan, accompanies the exhibition, providing additional tools for critical analysis and historical contextualization of the artist’s work.
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| Maurizio Donzelli in Modena: a solo exhibition dedicated to the nature of things |
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