L’oca gigante e altre meraviglie

"L’oca gigante e altre meraviglie"

from Thursday, September 18, 2025 to Sunday, February 8, 2026

Fondazione Ago Modena Fabbriche - Palazzo Santa Margherita

L'oca gigante e altre meraviglie (The Giant Goose and Other Wonders) is an exhibition by Paolo Ventura curated by Chiara Dall'Olio and Francesca Fontana.

L'oca gigante e altre meraviglie presents a selection of works that reflect Paolo Ventura's creative universe, characterized by settings suspended between reality and fantasy, photographs often contaminated by pictorial intervention and collage. Sometimes, the artist himself enters these worlds, depicting himself or his family: the result is short, magical, and surreal narratives that reveal his fascination with the world of the circus and costumes, as well as his passion for uniforms and war stories.
To create his photographic sets, the Milanese artist builds dioramas out of cardboard and objects found in flea markets, giving life to a mise en abîme that becomes a central element of his poetics. The sets are sometimes raw, sometimes dreamlike, evoking distant memories, either personally experienced or recounted. The places seem familiar in a way, part of a shared imagination, but are not really identifiable.

The exhibition will be held at Palazzo Santa Margherita and will also include a special section in the spaces of the Figurine Museum, where the artist, invited to explore the museum's historical heritage, is participating in a unique exhibition project that triggers a dialogue between the figurines and his personal imagination, exploring themes that are particularly dear to him through photography: time, identity, the world of the circus and masks, uniforms, and urban views.