Contemporary art at the Carovana

Since 2012 the Scuola Normale has been exhibiting in the rooms of Palazzo della Carovana artworks from the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art of Prato, thanks to a collaboration between the two institutions promoted by the then Director Fabio Beltram and supported by the Amici della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (the Friends of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa)

Every two or three years a selection of works coming from the museum is chosen by Flavio Fergonzi – a lecturer in the history of contemporary art at the Normale – together with Stefano Pezzato – the collection and archives director of the Pecci Centre – and Raffaele di  Vaia, co-ordinator of exhibition displays at the Pecci Centre.

The exhibition project involves various spaces with differing functions, and exists side by side with past works (including some donations of the Uffizi Museum) connected to the vicissitudes of the Palazzo itself and to the city of Pisa, creating an «itinerary of visions in the making, deviating from the standard idea of the museum  and from the academic specialisation in order to encourage interest in art and to bring out the critical spirit» (Stefano Pezzato, in Arte contemporanea per la Carovana, curated by Flavio Fergonzi, Edizioni della Normale 2023, P. 15) in all those who either habitually or occasionally frequent these spaces.
«What is striking about these works, seen in their entirety, is the non-homogeneity of the media and the languages: anyone now walking, or who within the last few years has walked, through the spaces of the Normale displaying the works of the Pecci Centre  will have found, and will still find, traditional paintings and sculptures but also photographs and wall installations, collages and montages, lightboxes and everyday objects extrapolated from their context and invested with a different significance. And above all I find the widest possible range of visual proposals…» (Flavio Fergonzi, in Arte contemporanea per la Carovana, cit. P. 20).

You can visit the exhibition by booking at this link.