Nature and artifice have always been founding categories for any aesthetic artistic discussion, but what is their role in the contemporary context? The exhibition Flowers. From the Renaissance to Artificial Intelligence, curated by Franziska Stöhr with Roger Diederen in collaboration with Suzanne Landau and with the support of Campomarzio70 and Coldiretti, intends to question these principles by curiously suggesting that the artistic practices that nowadays show an aesthetic preoccupation for sustainable strategies are often the same ones which integrate scientific and technological research, overall suggesting a new ecological and multimedia sensitivity. Botanical art is the protagonist of this exhibition. The show articulates by means of anachronisms, iconographies, symbols, experiments, themes and current affairs, configuring a highly sensorial complex in which beyond the visual, the auditory and the tactile, the sense of smell predominantly emerges within experience.
Austin Young (Fallen Fruit), “Temple of Flowers” (“Il Piccolo Paradiso”), 2025. Commissioned by Chiostro del Bramante for the exhibition “Flowers”. Courtesy Austin Young; photo: Giovanni De Angelis
In the prestigious setting of Chiostro del Bramante in Rome (built in 1504) we are welcomed by the sculpture Giant Triple Mushroom, 2018, by Carsten Höller, who has repeatedly traced this iconography also by virtue of his studies in agronomy, followed by the scenographic site-specific installation Tempio dei Giori (Il Piccolo Paradiso), 2025, by Austin Young (Fallen Fruit), which in dialogue with the Renaissance frescoes and the Bramante’s architecture, draws from literature research to configure an immersive image of a vivid and imaginative garden. ‘Ecology’ is the key word in the exhibition and the project Map Showing the Origin of Flowers, 2025, designed by Sofarobotnkik, as well as the photographic print Honeyflower 1, 2023 by Maximilian Prüfer, intend to raise awareness of the topic of pollination as a practice as necessary for living organisms as it is dramatically on the verge of extinction. These poetically elaborated data are followed by the project by Tomáš Gabzdil Libertiny, Honeycomb Head of the Emperor Hadrian, 2023, conceived in collaboration with The Israel Museum, and depicting a series of honeycomb sculptural casts up to a 3D model of the face of Emperor Hadrian (76-138 AD).
Honeycomb head of the Emperor Hadrian, 2023. Tomáš Libertíny with Rami Tareef and Dudi Mevorah curators of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny
A multicultural vision follows, where symbolic readings of botanical art around the globe are combined. Beyond the visions of Stefan Eberhard, Arabidopsis thaliana, 2011, and Marianne North looking at biodiversity, it is Andreas Gursky’s photographic print, Pyongyang I, 2007, to stand out: the photograph frames the perfect scenography entertained by the inhabitants of North Korea for the Arirang Festival and focused on floral symbols. Such an image is mirrored by the video images of the augmented reality installation, Forest Flux, 2023, by Tamiko Thiel And/P, which focuses on the micro-treetop of the Bavarian forests, exploring the impact of climate change through the superposition of tree species, among all the Norway spruce, generating an immersive climatic forest. Between myth and spirituality, the exhibition cites figures from ancient classicism between the sacred and the pagan: the sculptural composition by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Le Triomphe de Flore, 1873, pays homage to the Roman goddess Flora, venerated during the Floralia as a symbol of spring, fertility and good governance. It is presented alongside the Annunciation, 1714, by Giuseppe Castellano, in which the central iconography of the lily emerges, as a symbol of purity and chastity. In counterpoint we find the painting Narcisse, 1876, by Edouard-Thèophile Blanchard, which in revisiting the myth narrated in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, at the same time suggests a decadent vision alongside the sculpture Eve, 1866, by Jules-Aimée Dalou, which with its serpentine composition, refers to the archetype of the Tree of Knowledge.
Victor Freudemann, “Floral Splendorin the Light ofthe Greenhouse”, oil on canvas,
151 x 173 cm, courtesy Sebastian Kempf, Muenchen and Florentine Biere, Lohr, photo: Giovanni De Angelis
In this anachronistic path, centrality is given to the Renaissance botanical culture not only in relation to the museographic context, but also by virtue of the alliance that this culture has been able to impart between arts and sciences. Here, the choice of the Wunderkammer room is very current for a new reading of botanical art in the contemporary context. Between treatises, mirabilia, memento-mori, still-life and graphic and digital experiments, the works on display intend to once again enhance a reflection on nature and artifice. Patricia Kaersenhout, presents the digital print Of Palimpsests and Erasure, 2021, revisiting the eighteenth-century treatise Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, 1705, between illustration and digital image. Sustainability, recycling, assembly and graphics are at the center of Miron Schmückle‘s reflections for the watercolor Flesh for Fantasy, 2022, in dialogue with the Renaissance works Still-life, 1618, by Rob and Nick Carter, Vase of Flowers, late 16th – early 17th century – by Jan Brueghel the Elder, and the meticulous paintings Etude de botanique, 1615, by Girolamo Pini. Supporting a culture of abundance and fertility, there are the two large cornucopias Delft Snowball and Madame Moulliére, 2021, by Ann Carrington, which cites the iconography of Flemish still lifes in a sculptural key.
Rebecca Louise Law, “Calyx”, 2023, dried flowers, copper wire, variable dimensions, photo: Giovanni De Angelis, © Rebecca Louise Law
This is followed by an immersive sensorial crossing with the site-specific installation, Calyx, 2021, by Rebecca Louise Law, consisting of the sustainable reuse of 100,000 dried flowers otherwise destined for flower pulp, reflecting on a new symbolism of flowers between beauty and transience. The aesthetic approach is further accompanied by political considerations as in the works Extra-natural, 2023, by Miguel Chevalier, who rethinks life cycles through algorithmic art, configuring an imaginary garden. Other artists more broadly rethink the iconography of flowers as an unconditional symbol of peace: this is the case for Kehinde Wiley, with the series Portrait of a Florentine Nobleman, 2019, and for Thilo Westermann, Owanto, and Taryon Simon. This declination seems to culminate in the illusionistic landscape Blackfield, 2008-2015, by Zadok Ben-David, in which one observes a boundless field of flowers created through a careful study of botanical illustrations, which only apparently appears in black and white and then reveals itself, as one passes through it, as a composition of thousands of steel flowers engraved in color.
Studio Drift (Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta), “Meadow”, 2024, aluminum,
stainless steel, printed fabric, LEDs, robotics, variable dimensions, photo: Giovanni De
Angelis, courtesy the Drift
The exhibition concludes with a highly successful anachronistic dialogue in terms of immersion. The installation Meadow, 2024, by Studio Drift, composed of a series of suspended organic kinetic sculptures that mimic the blossoming of a life cycle, through different colors, suggests a poetic choreography that seems to make the Pre-Raphaelite painting, The Pilgrim in the Garden or Heart of the Rose, 1901, Edward Burne-Jones, with the collaboration of William Morris, immersive, a painting that cites the five episodes taken from the chivalric poem Le Roman de la Rose, which narrates the journey of a pilgrim poet in an enchanted garden, where the protagonist falls in love with an unattainable rose because it is hidden by a bush of thorns. He will have to wait for the help of the god Love to achieve such a desire that here, becomes a metaphor for a spiritual quest. With this wonderful courteous and literary citation the exhibition Flowers. From the Renaissance to Artificial Intelligence ends, suggesting us a reflection that is both aesthetic and ephemeral, both symbolic and sustainable on the relationship between nature and artifice in the arts.
Info:
AA.VV. Flowers. From the Renaissance to Artificial Intelligence
14/02 -14/09/2025
Chiostro del Bramante
Arco della Pace, 5 – Roma
www.chiostrodelbramante.it
She is interested in the visual, verbal and textual aspects of the Modern Contemporary Arts. From historical-artistic studies at the Cà Foscari University, Venice, she has specialized in teaching and curatorial practice at the IED, Rome, and Christie’s London. The field of her research activity focuses on the theme of Light from the 1950s to current times, ontologically considering artistic, phenomenological and visual innovation aspects.
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