by Redazione 15/11/2026
Categories: Exhibitions / Disclaimer
In Rome, from November 14, 2026, to January 7, 2027, the Blocco 13 gallery is hosting *Alla vista di certe piccole cose* (In the Sight of Certain Small Things), the new installation by Vincenzo Scolamiero, curated by Francesca Bottari, in which a large canvas interacts with stones, branches, and leaves gathered from the landscape.
In Vincenzo Scolamiero ’s studio, there are stones, fragments of marble, branches, and leaves gathered during walks through the countryside. They are neither models to be copied nor subjects to be transformed into images. Rather, they function as catalysts: objects that fuel the painter’s work and open up new possibilities for his painting. Now, for the first time in this form, those objects have left the studio and entered the artwork. In Rome, at the Blocco 13 space on Via Girolamo Benzoni, the exhibition *Alla vista di certe piccole cose*—curated by Francesca Bottari and centered on the installation of the same name, created by the artist specifically for this venue—is on view through January 7, 2027.
The centerpiece of the installation is a large canvas, measuring 197 by 220 centimeters, painted for the occasion. Vincenzo Scolamiero (Sant’Andrea di Conza, 1956) has woven a tapestry of brushstrokes, marks, and layers onto it, following the alphabet of forms born of gesture and color that he has refined over nearly forty years of work. Beside the canvas are plant and mineral elements, which here take on an autonomous, almost overwhelming weight and volume. Yet they always remain in relation to the painting. The curator speaks of a sort of drawing from lived experience, a “nature retrouvée”: a real nature that enters into direct dialogue with the colors of the painting.
This is not the first time the painter has placed natural objects alongside his paintings. He had already done so in the 2023 exhibition in Viterbo, in the 2025 exhibition at the Andersen Museum, and in this year’s retrospective at the Mattatoio. According to Bottari, however, the relationship changes at Blocco 13. Here, Scolamiero “goes further: he allows the ‘little things’ to interact with his works right before our eyes, almost losing control of them, almost freeing them from their role as catalysts for figurative imagination and allowing them to blend with the colors, the pictorial composition, the constructed spatiality, and his imagination.”
The exhibition’s title comes from a line in *Canto alla durata*, the short poem published by Peter Handke in 1986. For the curator, the work signals a shift in the artist’s practice: “We may be witnessing a new, unexpected freedom: the freedom granted to his ‘little things,’ to his exquisite painting, and perhaps even to himself. And to his own, highly personal and unprecedented, ‘Ode to Duration.’”
The installation originated within the “Focus” series at Blocco 13. These are occasions when the association’s thirteen artists set out to experiment with new approaches and explore paths they had never taken before. In keeping with the venue’s tradition, this exhibition, too, was conceived specifically for the spaces on Via Benzoni. Scolamiero is part of the group: through December 17, 2026, he is exhibiting a work alongside the other twelve members of Blocco 13 in the group show *La quinta stagione* (The Fifth Season), curated by Carlo Alberto Bucci at the Volunteer Service Center in Palazzo Cassetta, Rome.
Born in 1956 in Sant’Andrea di Conza, in the province of Avellino, Scolamiero lives and works in Rome, where he teaches painting at the Academy of Fine Arts. Since the 1980s, he has chosen painting as his medium for expressing his ideas. He made his debut in 1987 with a solo exhibition at Ferro di Cavallo, the historic bookstore-gallery on Via Ripetta, curated by Antonio Alessandro Mercadante. In 1989, he participated in *Altri lavori in corso* at the Il Campo gallery, and the following year in *Giovani artisti a Roma III* at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. In 1991, Maurizio Calvesi curated his solo exhibition at the Galleria ‘de serpenti. Since then, he has exhibited, among other venues, at the National Gallery of Modern Art, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, the Chiostro del Bramante, the MACRO, the Carlo Bilotti Museum, the Hendrik C. Andersen House Museum, and the Mattatoio. He has also exhibited in Milan, Venice, Bologna, Turin, Rimini, Treviso, New York, Seoul, Busan, Beijing, Shanghai, and Fenghuang. He participated in the Rome Quadriennale in 1996 and the Venice Biennale in 2011, and in 2014 he won first prize at the 65th edition of the Michetti Prize.
Among his most recent solo exhibitions are *Con qualche parte della terra*(With a Piece of the Earth), curated by Maria Vittoria Pinotti at the Mattatoio in Rome in 2026, and *Come sogni perduti* (Like Lost Dreams), curated by Maria Giuseppina Di Monte and Roberto Gramiccia at the Andersen House Museum in 2025. In 2023, there was *Di terra, acqua e vento* at the National Etruscan Museum of Rocca Albornoz in Viterbo, curated by Bottari and Stefano Petrocchi. In 2021, *Of Silence and Transparency* was held in Siena, across the Palazzo Pubblico, the Magazzini del Sale, and the Fondazione Accademia Musicale Chigiana. In 2019, *Of the Fading Shadow* was held at the Carlo Bilotti Museum, curated by Gabriele Simongini. In 2025, he exhibited alongside Andrea Bellobono, Luca Coser, and Giuseppe Frangi in *Anatomy of a Landscape* at Palazzo Sarcinelli in Conegliano. In December 2024, the Capitoline Superintendency invited him to participate in the “Art and Nature” series at the Casino dell’Orologio in Villa Borghese.
His relationship with poetry and music has long been a central theme in his work, especially in his artist’s books. In 1998, he published the short poem *Nudo e misero trionfi l’umano* with the poet Giovanna Sicari. In 2010, he collaborated with Milo De Angelis to create twelve one-of-a-kind book-artworks titled *Un finale d’assedio*. In 2017, he collaborated with composer Silvia Colasanti on *Ogni cosa ad ogni cosa ha detto addio*, a tribute to Valentino Zeichen’s work of the same name, produced in a limited edition of seven copies. The line from Handke that gives the Blocco13 exhibition its title is part of this long engagement with poetry.
“At the Sight of Certain Small Things” is on view at Blocco 13, located at Via Girolamo Benzoni 13 in Rome, through Thursday, January 7, 2027. For information: blocco13roma@gmail.com, phone 329 2866299.
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| Vincenzo Scolamiero brings nature and the little things into his paintings: a new installation in Rome |
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