FROM THE ORIGINS TO THE DESTINY

THE EXHIBITION

“From the origins to the destiny” is the new exhibition of Fondazione Golinelli (Golinelli Foundation), curated by Andrea Zanotti, Antonio Danieli, Luca Ciancabilla and Simone Gheduzzi.

The exhibiting itinerary is divided in two great sections, that unravel in five legs. The first section will focus on evolutionary civilization views, intended how collective experience, integral sum of all individual lives that cut through our Earth during millions of years. Starting from homo sapiens and during his very slow evolution, the methods by which man has always tried to orient himself in the world will be investigated, wondering about his origins and his destiny. From the invention of writing to the one of printing press, from the Renaissance to the Industrial and Digital Revolutions, from the speed at human walking pace, to the one of the water and wind, to the highest peaks reached today thanks to the technique, through the space, the time and the information sphere: the visitors will retrace the stages of human evolution, recognising the crucial role of technique, that leaded the development and transformed our relationship with nature first and Universe then. In this first section, the visitors will start a real time travel, thanks to the presence of finds, artifacts, technical-scientific instruments, installations, artworks and several materials designs of artistic techniques from the Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt to modern times. Next to the works of some of the most important names of Italian art in twentieth century, from Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Fortunato De Pero, Mario Sironi, Bruno Munari’s artworks, Pablo Picasso and Ettore Sottsass design objects will be shown together with masterpieces of high creative content engineering like the sophisticated motorbikes Ducati or the base coat of a high performances supercar, the Dallara Stradale, from which areodynamic flow lines and distribution of air pressure emerge.

The perception of incremental speed that accompanies spectators during the first part of exhibition materialises into the setting-up by diverserighestudio: a three-dimensional spiral which retraces the main stages of human evolution. With the progress of the path, the spiral gets smaller, generating a growing sensation of acceleration, until it arrives almost to disorientation. The challenges complexity that waits humanity, in terms of evolution and elaboration of new development strategies, is highlighted from chess metaphor: inside the spiral, the pawns movements are linked to specific moments of important technical and scientific man-made discoveries that produced an advancement in the history, until to arrive to a present when the traditional coordinates don’t seem to be more sufficient and the progress pace reaches violent levels.

THE SECOND CHAPTER

In the second section we are called to reflect on our own existential condition and invited, at the same time, to a more intimate exercise: rediscovering, in an era dominated by a frenetic and incessant becoming, the awareness of a future whose sense always appears more elusive. Today the spiral swirling of history reached not compatible accelerations with the existence, causing a spread sense of quivers and disorientation. The advent of advanced technologies linked to Artificial Intelligence – neural networks, machine learning, big data, Large Language Model – is revolutionising the solemn gait of the man in a future that seems overlooking the will of his same creator. By now the starting point of human adventure is not more clear and defined and the thread of destiny gets lost in the labyrinth of a unique virtuality of reality.

What steps will the man have to perform for reconquering a subjective and collective meaning of evolution?
The exhibition will stimulate visitors returning to reflect about their own origins and their own destiny, to explore the opportunities of a new humanism in the era of Artificial Intelligence and to imagine a new perspective for the future, the one of a common and supportive human intelligence. The second section of the exhibition will start with Anselm Kiefer’s work and will host other contemporary artists’ works, including Nicola Samorì and Ronald Ventura, that will reflect precisely about the disorientation topic and the current human condition.
An immersive exhibit of huge emotional impact will conclude the exhibited itinerary: the T-Simmetry, the reverse chronology tunnel created and made by Fondazione Golinelli. Thanks to the most advanced technologies, the general public will venture in an interactive backwards travel in time, retracing symbolically the basic stages of their own existence in the tunnel, as if the ribbon of our own life was rewound. The purpose is the one of making visitors try the experience of a route that starts from the end, from the destiny – whatever it is for everyone – and enveloping itself again in the opposite direction returns to the origins. The route inside the T-Simmetry suggests how, in front of the current apparent dominance of technique, is still possible and vital experimenting the return to a native condition through the rehabilitation of mental disposition aimed at to rethink, as wells as the relationship between himself and the others, also the role of technique itself, in the deeper essence of which there is nothing extremely technique, but rather specifically human.
This innovative experiential installation, will allow to separate himself from the collective dimension of civilization, present in the first part of exhibition and abandon himself to an intimate and interior research, a rich route rich in suggestions accompanied by previously unknown verses of poets Milo De Angelis, to which the actress Viviana Nicodemo gives voice, and those ones of Gian Ruggero Manzoni.

THE SCIENCE TODAY

“From the origins to the destiny” inserts itself in the cycle of exhibiting projects that Fondazione Golinelli dedicated to the exploration of art and science hendiadys during the years. Art and science represent the founding pillars of man’s knowledge, whose development is historically characterised by ongoing paradigm changes and unexpected overturnings. In the Renaissance the man was the measure of everything, presenting himself at the centre of the world who wanted and could be recognised in all his specificities. Today this model proves to be overturned: from subject firmly at the centre of the explored and the explorable, even now the man is object of technical-scientific progress that doesn’t determine anymore, and not only, based on his will: generating therefore, inevitably, uncertainty and apprehension.

The exhibition will be determined to provide useful instruments to the visitor to reflect about the past and the future, our relationship with time and technology, to exhort to implement an exercise in humanity turned towards to reconcile the personal dimension and the collective one that destiny concept holds together.

Information

From the origins to the destiny
Where: Centro Arti e Scienze Golinelli | Opificio Golinelli, via Paolo Nanni Costa, 14 – Bologna
Inauguration: 8th February 2025 – 30th June 2025.
Opening times: from Tuesday to Friday from 3pm to 8pm; Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 8pm. Closed on Monday. Tariffs: 12€ full ticket and 10€ reduced-price ticket inclusive of audio guide; 10€ laboratory for kids and guys/girls (included guide tour)