Microcosm. Visions of Contemporary Landscapes from Around the World is the catalogue of the exhibition hosted at the Palazzo Doria Pamphili Museum from 16 February to 31 March 2019 curated by Monica Di Gregorio and Antonio Trimani. The initiative was part of a broader network project promoted by the Museumgrandtour Museum System and financed by the Regional Law No. 26/2009 – Avviso Pubblico ‘La Cultura fa Sistema’. ‘Visions of landscapes in art, science and literature’ featured no less than fourteen museums in the Castelli Romani and Prenestini, and saw the landscape interpreted in various ways as a trait d’union capable of expressing a wide and diverse territory in a transversal manner.

This theme and the four parts of the world frescoed on the vaults of Palazzo Doria Pamphilj gave rise to the idea of Microcosm, an exhibition designed to gather works by artists from the five continents for a comparison of their respective ‘visions’ and, in a broader sense, to stimulate a dialectic process between ‘host landscape’ and ‘hosted landscape’. In the spacious halls of the Palazzo, the different expressive languages found their place with extreme naturalness, in constant dialogue with the frescoed surfaces and the signs left by time and the passage of the inhabitants.

In addition to the contributions by the two curators, the catalogue includes entries by Carmelo Cipriani, Massimo Scaringella and Jozef Cseres, with a broad overview of the various ways of approaching the theme in relation to the individual experiences and personalities of the artists featured in the exhibition.

The rich selection of photographs that make up the second part of the catalogue document the exhibition layout in a systematic manner, and show how the harmonious integration between the frescoed space and the works, many of which were conceived specifically for the Valmontone premises, strongly emerges.

The catalogue suggests further food for thought on the theme of site-specificity and the opportunity of valorisation that contemporary art offers historical residences. At the same time, Microcosm has shown that places such as Valmontone can continually give rise to new relationships of reciprocity, proposing limitless connections between the forms of the past and the languages of the present, and formulate interpretative solutions capable of producing original and innovative keys to interpretation, highlighting aspects of our museums that would otherwise escape traditional modes of use.

Exhibiting artists: Maria Thereza Alvez / Peter Campus / Patricia Claro / Alvin Curran / Jimmie Durham Kathleen J Graves / César Meneghetti / Michael Snow / Bill Viola / Ernest Dükü / Theo Eschetu / Ananias Léki Dago / Mohamed Keita / Joachim K. Silué / Ouattara Watts / Chiara Arturo / Bankeri / Carlo Bernardini / Iginio De Luca / Tiziano Doria / Angelo Maria Farro / LU.PA / Federico Fusj / Emanuele Giannetti / Emilio Isgrò / Gianni Lillo / Matteo Montani / Alice Paltrinieri / Mimmo Rubino / Donatella Spaziani / Jan Steklík / Mat Toan / Antonio Trimani / Stephen Roach / Jon Rose & Hollis Taylor / Fang Shengyi / Liu Shangying / Suh Yongsun Wang Yu