Sara Enrico's sculptures conquer Villa Reale
For the first time, the collaboration between Gam and Fondazione Furla brings works into the garden in a dialogue with the wider public
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Key points
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For the first time since the beginning of its collaboration with Gam, Fondazione Furla has taken over the Giardino di Villa Reale with Sara Enrico's solo exhibition entitled "Under the Sun, Beyond the Skin" (from 16 September to 14 December 2025). Born in Biella in 1979, based in Turin, the artist is known for her sculptures that speak of body and surface while remaining abstract. For the exhibition, she has conceived an itinerary in the well-known garden, which the Councillor for Culture Tommaso Sacchi defined at the press conference as a "place of the soul" for the Milanese, with five groups of works that penetrate nature and architecture in a discreet but decisive manner.
The transition from State to Municipality
.It is also an important step from an administrative point of view, as pointed out by the director of the Milan Museums of Modern and Contemporary Art Gianfranco Maraniello, since it shows the plan to enhance the Villa Reale complex, including Villa Belgiojoso Bonaparte, which houses the Gam and Pac, and the garden, in line with the project to transfer the property definitively from the Agenzia del Demanio to the Municipal Administration, which had already been managing it since 1920 and is now (from December 2024) responsible for its enhancement and conservation.
Nature and Artifice
."Exhibiting in public space, for an artist, is a challenge," said Fondazione Furla curator Bruna Roccasalva, "because he or she is confronted with an enlarged public, who find themselves in front of a work of art without having asked for it. What is more, it does so in this historic garden, a man-made place where cultural and natural elements intertwine. This combination of nature and artifice has inspired the artist in his sculptures, understood as hybrid forms that open up to many other fields such as architecture, choreography and tailoring. Thus, a landscape within a landscape is born, marked by the horizontal dimension, which is reflected in the elements of the building's façade, as well as in the artist's works".
The five interventions
.An exhibition without walls, therefore, consisting of five interventions at as many locations in the park. At the beginning of the itinerary, that is, on the terrace of the villa, and then again in the Temple of Love, there are examples of one of the artist's most iconic series, entitled "The Jumpsuit Theme", anthropomorphic forms in pigmented cement, inspired by overalls (let us not forget the artist's Biella origins in his relationship with fabric) and the idea of a second skin. On the large lawn in front of the villa is a large installation with 23 multicoloured elements made of nautical foam rubber, covered with a technical fabric obtained by manipulating a piece of white painting cloth on the scanner, thus generating colour from light, which is then exposed to natural light. For the third group of works, some logs destroyed by the storm of July 2023 have been recovered: by means of supports, the artist has changed their posture in a gesture that seems to reanimate them. Finally, the last works are a new production in cement and glass that represent a reflection on the very act of looking, but also a dematerialisation of the body.
The Career and the Market
.After studying in Turin and Florence, Sara Enrico began exhibiting more than 15 years ago. Particularly important for her career was the New York Prize in 2018, which led her to work in the Big Apple and a residency at ISCP - International Studios and Curatorial Program. Also in 2018-19 she won the Italian Council, which led her to two museum solo shows at Mart in Rovereto and Národní galerie in Prague. In 2020 she won Cantica 21, which resulted in her work entering the Macte collection. Important milestones were also reached in 2022 with the Italian Fellowship in visual arts at the American Academy in Rome and participation in the 59th International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, 'The Milk of Dreams', curated by Cecilia Alemani. The following year, Sara Enrico started working exclusively with the Vistamare gallery (Milan and Pescara), where her works fetch between 7,000 and 25,000 euro and which collaborated on the current exhibition at the Gam in Milan. His market is held in the gallery, while no auction sales have yet been recorded. At the level of museum collections, in addition to Macte in Termoli, his works are at Mart in Rovereto, Pav in Turin, the Michetti Foundation in Francavilla a mare, Castello di Rivoli thanks to the purchase at Artissima in 2024 by the Crt Foundation, in Giorgio Fasol's Agi private collection in Verona and in Viafarini in Milan.
