Beyond form. The gesture
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Castello dal Verme, Zavattarello, Oltrepò Pavese
Free entry
In the pulsating heart of Oltrepò Pavese, where the hills cease to be mere landscapes and the stones guard centuries-old silences, Zavattarello returns to art with a gesture that is far more than mere urban decoration: it is an affirmation of identity, a cultural opening, and a long-term vision.
On June 21, an ambitious project of cultural and symbolic reactivation of the village will be inaugurated. A widespread park of monumental sculptures—created and left as a legacy by the visionary Luciana Matalon—intertwines with a dual photographic exhibition by Nello Taietti, which poetically and revealingly connects the human dimension of portraiture with the material essence of architecture.
The works of Matalon—an artist from Milan with a deep spiritual tension, capable of blending formal rigor, verticality of thought, and symbolic intensity—are placed in the village’s most iconic spots, subtly and irreversibly transforming it into an authorial landscape. These are not mere embellishments but a form of cultural activism. Her figures—archaic and futuristic, visionary and cosmic—do not invade space but emerge as necessary presences, as forgotten structures of a collective ritual.
At Castello Dal Verme, a permanent room dedicated to the artist will be opened, ensuring that her visions continue to live and generate meaning. In addition, two photographic exhibitions by Nello Taietti will immerse viewers in an aesthetic and anthropological dimension where the gaze is never neutral but participatory, immersive, and calibrated on the fine oscillation between distance and proximity.
Through his photography, Taietti performs a poetic act of proximity—an empathetic exercise in seeing, where the lens becomes a tool of the soul. His images do not merely document but investigate, question, and listen. Each photograph arises from an intimate connection built over time, an authentic encounter between the artist and his subject.
The first exhibition showcases intense portraits of individuals in a rural and serene setting, portraying the silent dialogue between the artist and his subjects. The lens becomes a means of coexistence, not intrusion, but a visual pilgrimage exploring identity and permanence.
The second series is a conceptual masterpiece featuring analog photographs of old doors in Varzi, a neighboring town of Zavattarello. Here, the threshold becomes the protagonist, linking past and present, interior and exterior. Weathered surfaces, timeworn wood, and rusty shadows transform into faceless portraits, silent bodies.
In this dual exhibition, photography transcends mere aesthetics and becomes a tool for investigation, fostering connections and redefining the territory as a living subject rather than a mere backdrop. This approach makes the Zavattarello Art initiative a profoundly political act—political in the Greek sense of the word: the management of the polis, the construction of the future through culture.
info & contacts
Luciana Matalon Foundation
+39 02 878781
[email protected]
www.fondazionematalon.org
opening hours
10:00 – 13:00 | 14:00 – 19:00
Free admission
Castello dal Verme
+39 3395370214 | +39 3518161906
[email protected]
www.castellodalverme.com
opening hours
Weekends and holidays:
Morning: from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Afternoon: every hour from 2:00 PM to 7:00 PM (last entry at 6:00 PM)
Accessible by reservation
