Transitum

The Bagatti Valsecchi Museum and BUILDING present the new chapter of Transitum, a solo exhibition by artist Fabrizio Cotognini curated by Marina Dacci, which takes shape among the rooms of the museum house from June 20 to September 14, 2025.

The exhibition, part of a widespread project in three locations in the city of Milan - BUILDING GALLERY, Moshe Tabibnia Gallery and Museo Bagatti Valsecchi -, finds a particularly evocative chapter in the house museum on Via Gesù. 13 works by Cotognini are intertwined with the neo-Renaissance collection of the historic mansion, generating a dense dialogue of visual and conceptual references. The Bagatti Valsecchi Museum interprets the language of Transitum, offering an unprecedented perspective that is intimately consistent with the artist's poetics.

The centerpiece of this interweaving is the Library, an authentic Wunderkammer where, among Renaissance mirabilia and scientific instruments, is placed the artist's book How to Explain to Birds that the Sun Belongs to Everyone (2020). This volume, which seamlessly weaves together images and written annotations, returns an immersive and intimate experience of the artist's creative process. Placed on the room's large 15th-century wooden table, the book stands as a poetic relic dedicated to the flight of birds, ideally sealing the dialogue between past and contemporary.

The exhibition also presents twelve bronze microcastings, entitled Hybridatio Mundi (2024- 2025), depicting small birds. Made with singular technical skill and charged with symbolic meaning, these works refer to the recurring themes of transformation and metamorphosis, in continuity with the exhibitions in the BUILDING GALLERY and Moshe Tabibnia Gallery venues. Cotognini's works are harmoniously placed in eight rooms of the Museum, chosen to trigger a silent and evocative dialogue between the artist's flights, the rooms of the dwelling and the works that constitute its identity core. The micro-infusions animate both the representative rooms, such as the Dining Room and the Arms Gallery, and the more intimate spaces of the private apartments of brothers Fausto and Giuseppe Bagatti Valsecchi, creating a path that invites the public to observe carefully and be surprised by Cotognini's contemporary incursions.

"Birds are symbols of absolute freedom of thought, imagination and rapid relationship with the spirit. Linked to the element air, they represent messengers between earth and sky, transcending the traditional limits of space and time. “ observes curator Marina Dacci ”It was natural to ideally open wide the windows of the gallery and let a small flock migrate to the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, a neo-Renaissance mansion capable of bridging five centuries thanks to its collections of paintings, furniture and applied art."