“NUVOLA PASSEGGERA”: THE ART OF BREATH BY GIORGIO VIGNA ON DISPLAY AT BASSI BENEVENTANO IN SCICLI FROM AUGUST 21th TO OCTOBER 31th, 2025
SCICLI – A passing cloud will drift across the sky of Scicli and gently settle, with its intense lightness, in the Bassi Beneventano, the ground-floor exhibition spaces of the majestic Palazzo Beneventano. This is where Passing Cloud takes shape, the new exhibition by Giorgio Vigna, curated by Agata Polizzi, open to the public from August 21 to October 31, 2025, and organized by Lo Magno artecontemporanea and the Amenta Art Printmaking Studio.
The inauguration (Wednesday, August 20 at 8:00 PM) will be preceded by a presentation talk at the Church-Museum of Santa Teresa d’Avila, starting at 7:00 PM. In addition to the organizers, Giorgio Vigna, Agata Polizzi, and Giovanni Caccamo—a prominent figure in contemporary Italian songwriting—will speak about the project.
This is a profound and sensitive exhibition that puts the Veronese artist’s poetic vision into dialogue with the Sicilian landscape, intertwining memory, light, and transformation. Vigna’s works—sculptures, installations, works on paper, including his standout Cosmografie, Sassi, and Lapilli made of glass—originate from living matter, shaped by the elements: air, water, and fire. These pieces seem to breathe, made of light and longing, establishing a direct dialogue with the viewer—one of intuition, resonance, and belonging.
His artistic practice is grounded in the search for primordial form and the tension between the natural and the artificial, between what is and what appears. His creations act as “windows to the soul,” offering glimpses into the essence of things. Giorgio Vigna, a multidisciplinary artist, combines elemental power with artistic delicacy. Over the course of his career, he has exhibited in prestigious museums and galleries around the world, moving between sculpture, installation, jewelry, and works on paper, shaping materials with an almost alchemical sensitivity. His works are part of important public and private international collections.
The exhibition is curated by Agata Polizzi, art historian and independent curator, who writes about the show:
“Like all poets, Giorgio Vigna—who is a poet of breath—believes in the generative power of art as a form of healing. That is why he weaves together desire, memories of the past, and hope for the future. Passing Cloud is born of a love for beauty, from a distant echo that connects the artist to his father, and from a deep passion for a beloved land: Sicily. The works are alive, they celebrate Nature, maintaining an open, powerful, and respectful dialogue with it. They are part of a process in which the artist’s action plays an evocative role, where the control of chance and the imperfection of gesture become necessary—vital, even.”
The exhibition design will accompany this vision with sensitivity and restraint: it will be an invitation to contemplation, to quiet exploration, to the possibility of truly seeing what lies beneath the surface. The exhibition will unfold as an immersive experience, where visitors can follow their own rhythm, choosing paths and details to pause upon.
Passing Cloud will be hosted at Bassi Beneventano, the result of a synergistic collaboration between cultural institutions deeply rooted in the region: Lo Magno artecontemporanea, active since 2003, and the Amenta Art Printmaking Studio, founded in 2011 by Loredana Amenta. An artist and master printmaker, Amenta has revived the ancient art of intaglio engraving, merging tradition with contemporary sensibilities within one of Sicily’s most evocative Baroque palaces. This venue cultivates a slow, artisanal approach to art, in constant dialogue with contemporary languages.
During the exhibition, a new and exclusive printmaking project—born from the first collaboration between Giorgio Vigna and Loredana Amenta—will be unveiled, accompanied by a text by Giovanni Caccamo, with whom the artist shares his experience, exchanging ideas and experimentation. On this occasion, the Passing Cloud catalogue will also be presented, gathering reflections on the exhibition and offering opportunities for in-depth dialogue among the artist, Agata Polizzi, Loredana Amenta, Giuseppe Lo Magno, and Giovanni Caccamo.
The exhibition will be open from Tuesday to Saturday, from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM, and is presented with the patronage of the City of Scicli, and supported by Antica Dolceria Bonajuto (Modica), Ghibli Solutions (Ragusa), and Molino Roccasalva (Modica).
Special thanks to the Mayor of Scicli Mario Marino, the Councillor for Culture Giuseppe Mariotta, Enrico Statello, and the staff of the Agire Cooperative of Scicli.
NUVOLA PASSEGGERA
Curated by Agata Polizzi
Poet of the Breath
Aim at the clouds and other silent things,
aim at the light, always seek it.
In the end, aim at madness if you have it,
if it wasn’t stolen from you as a child.
(Franco Arminio, Songs of Gratitude)
Like all poets, Giorgio Vigna, who is a poet of the breath, believes in the generative power of art as a cure, and for this reason he intertwines desire, memories of the past, and hope for the future in his new project for the Palazzo Beneventano in Scicli. Nuvola passeggera (Passing Cloud) stems from a love of beauty, from a distant echo that links the artist to his father, from a passion for his beloved land, Sicily, where on every journey the artist’s gaze rests on a detail, a memory, a suggestion of the landscape that, like a spontaneous suggestion, is determined to reinforce the necessary idea of narration. Nuvola Passeggera stems from a belief in the salvific circularity of art as a collective experience.
The works are alive, celebrating Nature while maintaining an open, powerful, respectful dialogue with it.
They are themselves part of a process in which the artist’s action has an evocative, generative role, in which the control of chance and the imperfection of the gesture
become necessary, even vital. Giorgio Vigna presents a group of works that offer an intense insight into his long and constant research into matter and form, works in dialogue with each other, essential, generous works, three-dimensional and two-dimensional works that love contact with the earth and are in constant evolution like living organisms.
Air, water, and fire shape them into a form that is artifice but also truth, both extremes of this dichotomy are valid and subject to a natural process in which everything flows.
The Glass Stones and Cosmographies are absolute works in which it is possible to recognize oneself and sometimes lose oneself. Giorgio Vigna’s works seek light, they are light, in a conceptual coherence between thought and form. Ideally, they are ‘windows of light’, slits in the soul through which to glimpse existence.
The reference between interior and exterior is a subtle, deliberate and nuanced game, there is an awareness of something greater that guides us, a small miracle that is renewed every time that breath allows us to take the time to think, to observe and find a precise belonging, the time to understand that art is not only about aesthetic research but also the need to express feelings, emotions and sensations. The staging of the works evokes this idea of collective experience and enjoyment of research as if listening to the artist’s voice and allowing the eye to find its natural path, the right detail to linger on, the direction to take in order to ‘see’ more clearly what really is.
