Date
Opening: Friday the 18th of September at 6:30 p.m.; admission is free
“Artificial Paradises” is a contemporary art project by Giorgio Tentolini that emerged from a dialogue with the San Lorenzo Archaeological Museum and its collections.
The exhibition unfolds through several key sections of the museum—the mosaics, the Nymphaeum, Venus and Diana, the garden, the Nereids, and the funerary stelae—which serve as the starting point for a reflection on images, their transformation, and their ability to transcend time.
The title evokes places built by humans to create an ideal dimension: the Nymphaeum and the gardens of Roman domus, but also the universes generated today by artificial intelligence. Tentolini’s works fit into this space of connection, bringing together imaginaries separated by time.
The relationship with the permanent collection is at the heart of the exhibition. The works are not simply set within the museum’s galleries: nearly all of them emerged from a direct engagement with the artifacts and the spaces that house them.
Mosaics, statues, frescoes, and stelae thus become interlocutors with the contemporary works. The images change in material, form, and meaning, yet they continue to explore the same themes: memory, representation, nature, and time.
The ancient and the contemporary are not pitted against one another, but enter into a relationship capable of altering our perspective on both. For even an archaeological artifact, every time it is observed and interpreted, comes back to life in the present.
The artist
Giorgio Tentolini’s practice focuses on the image and its transformation through photography, material, and space. His work primarily employs wire mesh, combined with materials such as steel and wax.
In recent years, his practice has also engaged with images generated by artificial intelligence—not so much as a technological theme, but rather as a starting point for exploring how images are constructed, recomposed, and transformed over time.
His practice is rooted in the transformation of materials. The wire mesh, shaped through a painstaking process of cutting and subtraction, allows the image to emerge through what remains and what is removed.
Wax becomes a medium of memory, capable of absorbing and preserving traces.
Time is an integral part of the process: images rapidly generated by artificial intelligence are transformed by the artist through slow, patient manual labor.
The exhibition catalog will be on sale for €10.
In May 2026, we saw a preview of the event. You can find more information at this link:
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