Gianfranco Baruchello (1924 – 2023) was a philosopher-artist, an explorer of liminal worlds where thought becomes image and image turns into possibility. Born in Livorno, he navigated the post-war era with a research practice that constantly questioned the boundaries between art and life, between the rational and the irrational. His artistic practice was nourished by a continuous dialogue between disciplines, blending painting, writing, cinema and agriculture into a profound reflection on the mechanisms of knowledge and perception. Throughout his career, he developed an autonomous language, infused with micro-narratives and fragments of contemporary culture, where seemingly marginal details became privileged sites for new possibilities of meaning. His research persistently examined the power of images and signs, challenging the relationship between representation and reality through an approach that was both analytical and poetic.
Gianfranco Baruchello, “Mondi possibili”, installation view at Villa Farnesina, ph. © Alessia Calzecchi, courtesy Accademia dei Lincei – Villa Farnesina, Roma
The exhibition at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome is not merely a display of artworks but an invitation to enter a fluid universe where thought is layered, takes shape, and then dissolves into other configurations. Baruchello always conceived art as a tool for knowledge, a practice that disrupts rigid systems to open fissures in the compact fabric of perception. His idea of “Possible Worlds” is not an escape into the unreal but an exercise in re-signification of reality – a serious game that forces us to look beyond established codes. Curator Carla Subrizi – president of the Baruchello Foundation – explains that these worlds emerge when time loses its linear structure: past and present intertwine, overturning traditional temporal categories and generating continuous exchanges between different epochs. This interaction between eras is not limited to the contrast between ancient and contemporary but unfolds as a profound exploration of their possible connections. Experiences, memories and histories enter into relation with one another, creating short circuits and new interpretations of reality. This process of layering and rewriting history has always been central to Baruchello’s work, allowing for the creation of a visual and conceptual fabric in which every image opens up to multiple meanings.
Gianfranco Baruchello, “Mondi possibili”, installation view at Villa Farnesina, ph. © Alessia Calzecchi, courtesy Accademia dei Lincei – Villa Farnesina, Roma
Villa Farnesina, with its Renaissance frescoes and mythological imagery, becomes an ideal interlocutor for Baruchello’s thought. The exhibition unfolds through the Villa’s interior and exterior spaces, establishing a dialogue between different epochs and triggering a confrontation between art and history, between inspiration and creation. The artist, with his hybrid and fragmented language, constructs possible worlds in which time expands and temporal sequences overlap, bringing forth unprecedented connections between past and present. His works interact with the historical stratifications of the space, creating temporal short circuits where the ancient and the contemporary interpenetrate. Within this context, his works seem to deconstruct and reconstruct memory, suggesting new interpretative trajectories.
Gianfranco Baruchello, “Mondi possibili”, installation view at Villa Farnesina, ph. © Alessia Calzecchi, courtesy Accademia dei Lincei – Villa Farnesina, Roma
His works are traces of a journey that is both internal and cosmic. In “Murmur” (2015), thought becomes dust, an indistinct murmur that drifts between images and words, as if consciousness itself were fragmenting into a mosaic of unforeseen associations. The Loggia of Cupid and Psyche becomes the stage for this inquiry into metamorphosis and desire, where the boundary between dream and matter dissolves into a continuous breath. Here, Raphael’s mythological narrative, with its classical ideal and formal perfection, meets Baruchello’s exploration of the instability of thought, the fluidity of memory and the irregularity of mental associations. Art is no longer merely a celebration of myth but becomes a field of tension between order and fragmentation, between collective imagination and individual perception. In “Il Fiume” (1982 – 1983), reflection becomes a flow, but an interrupted one, a river course that stops, as if history itself were a vulnerable organism, exposed to shifts and drifts of the collective unconscious. In this work, as in many others, the natural element is never just a backdrop but a living body endowed with its own secret grammar. Its placement in Villa Farnesina creates a powerful visual short circuit with Raphael’s Galatea: the nymph, a symbol of classical beauty and harmony, contrasts with the representation of an unstable, blocked,and restless flow. Where Raphael celebrates the apotheosis of form, Baruchello reveals its dissolution, questioning our ability to perceive time as continuity or rupture.
Gianfranco Baruchello, “Mondi possibili”, installation view at Villa Farnesina, ph. © Alessia Calzecchi, courtesy Accademia dei Lincei – Villa Farnesina, Roma
“La storia ci guarda” (1972 – 2018) instead confronts us with a radical question: what does it mean to remember? What is the weight of the images that survive? Baruchello collects visual fragments, cataloging and overlapping them, constructing an impossible archive where the logic of editing deconstructs meaning to reveal gaps, voids and omissions. Similarly, in “Rilievo ideale” (1965), cartography is dematerialized into an interior geography – a journey within the mind rather than across space – while in “Oh, Rocky Mountains Columbine” (1966), language is reduced to its essential form, caught in a constant tension between symbol and absence. This tension between construction and deconstruction recurs in “La Casa in fil di ferro” (1975), a dwelling without walls, a mental refuge rather than a physical one. Baruchello’s house is never a safe place but an open, fragile one, ready to be dismantled and reassembled, just like thought itself. “Monumento ai non eroi” (1962) then overturns the idea of public memory, erasing official epic narratives to restore dignity to those who have been excluded from historical accounts. This is not a monument that celebrates but one that questions, not one that exalts but one that deconstructs.
Gianfranco Baruchello, “Mondi possibili”, installation view at Villa Farnesina, ph. © Alessia Calzecchi, courtesy Accademia dei Lincei – Villa Farnesina, Roma
Finally, “Giftpflanzen, gefahr!” (2009) offers itself as a paradox: nature, often idealized, here becomes a field of tensions and dangers. The presence of poisonous plants invites the visitor to reflect on the relationship between beauty and threat, between attraction and risk, challenging conventional notions of the human-environment relationship. This installation, too, is part of the dialogue with Villa Farnesina, where the nature depicted in the fresco cycles confronts a more complex and ambivalent vision of reality. Baruchello compels us to reassess our relationship with the vegetal world, unmasking the illusion of a predetermined harmony.
Gianfranco Baruchello, “Mondi possibili”, installation view at Villa Farnesina, ph. © Alessia Calzecchi, courtesy Accademia dei Lincei – Villa Farnesina, Roma
This exhibition is not only a tribute to Baruchello but also an invitation to rethink our way of seeing, imagining and inhabiting the world. His work does not merely represent reality: it interrogates, excavates and deconstructs it to open up unforeseen spaces of meaning. His art asks us to accept instability as an essential condition of existence, to see fragmentation not as loss but as an opportunity to construct new horizons. For him, art has always been a form of resistance against homogenization – an architecture of uncertainty capable of generating new possibilities of existence. In this perspective, the artist is someone who traverses unknown territories, exploring the fissures between the visible and the invisible, between memory and oblivion, between history and its rewriting. His works do not offer answers but generate questions, instill doubts, and dismantle certainties. In an era marked by acceleration and image overproduction, Baruchello invites us to slow down, to pause, to observe the world from unexpected angles and to seek connections where there seem to be only discontinuities.
Info:
Gianfranco Baruchello. Mondi possibili
curated by Carla Subrizi
25/01/2025 – 3/05/2025
Villa Farnesina
via della Lungara 230, Roma
www.villafarnesina.it
Micol Di Veroli (Rome, 1976) is an art historian, critic and independent curator. She is a member of AICA – International Association of Art Critics. Since 2010 she has been curator of Glocal Project Consulting and collaborates with several international museums creating projects aimed at promoting and supporting Italian art abroad.
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