Italian
An immersive journey divided into five sections with 240 works, promising emotions and creative suggestions. A true epochal manifesto available from May 16 to October 18, 2026
Exactly 40 years ago, in 1986, the designer and entrepreneur Laura Biagiotti visited an exhibition at the Galleria Chimera in Rome that showcased works by Giacomo Balla and his daughters Elica and Luce. From that moment until her passing in 2017, Laura Biagiotti continuously and passionately acquired and promoted the works of Giacomo Balla, becoming, along with her husband Gianni Cigna, his largest private collector.
The works collected in the first decade, precisely until 1996, the year of her husband’s passing, now belong to the Biagiotti Cigna Foundation which ensures the integrity and memory of an enlightened collection and generous patronage.
The artistic director of the Foundation, Professor Fabio Benzi, is in charge of Balla’s works for the Biagiotti family, along with Beatrice Avanzi, head of the exhibition office at the Mart in Rovereto, who is co-curating the major exhibition Giacomo Balla. The Style of the Avant-Garde.
For the first time in Italy in its entirety, the presentation of the collection of works “Balla/Biagiotti” in Rovereto consolidates a narrative continuity that sees the Trentino museum as the ideal place for enhancing the Futurist avant-garde.
The works of the Laura Biagiotti Collection and the Biagiotti Cigna Foundation engage with a heritage that has always been focused on exploring the Italian events of the 20th century, with particular attention to futurism and the work of Fortunato Depero, whose legacy gave rise to the museum itself.
Laura Biagiotti’s intuition allowed for the gathering of the most significant collection of works by Giacomo Balla, from his divisionist beginnings to abstract works, from sketches to furnishings, including large canvases and drawings. Laura Biagiotti was also the first to recognize the value of the figurative works created by Balla in the Thirties, which had been undervalued until then. A passionate scholar of the artist, very attentive to his creative process and respectful of his ideas, Biagiotti recognized in Balla the coherent and constant attention to fashion and its role in mass culture and in communication languages.
If in 1915, together with his friend Depero, Balla theorized the famous Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe, the Anti-Neutral Suit by Balla is from the previous year. A true manifesto of futurist fashion, the original manuscript was purchased by Laura Biagiotti and is now on display alongside the manifesto of Reconstruction, part of the Mart’s collection. Both of these theoretical pillars mark the transition of the futurist movement from a mere artistic current to a true lifestyle, in search of total art.
It is part of the core works of the Laura Biagiotti collection, including the Futurist Genius, the largest work ever created by Balla: a colorful oil on tapestry, approximately 4 meters wide and almost 3 meters high. Created in 1925, it was presented in Paris during the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts.
Also on display are objects, furniture, tapestries, lampshades; studies for scarves, ties, hats, embroideries; testimonies of a production that engaged the artist throughout his life. The chronological path is divided into five thematic sections: Divisionism, Futurism, Futurist Fashion, Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe, A New Modern Figuration.
The exhibition is complemented by a richly illustrated catalog, published by Silvana Editoriale featuring a remarkable and cohesive selection of works from the Laura Biagiotti Collection and the Biagiotti Cigna Foundation, brought together here in a dialogue that reveals their deep coherence and vitality. On this occasion, the text written by Laura Biagiotti for the major exhibition at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, where the collection was presented for the first time in 1996, is republished. The volume also includes: an in-depth text on the history of Biagiotti’s collecting, and an essay on Giacomo Balla written by the curator Fabio Benzi; an essay on Balla and Depero’s Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe, by the head of the Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero, Federico Zanoner; introductory texts on the sections of the Mart exhibition, curated by Beatrice Avanzi.
Note – This statement is published in full as an external contribution. Therefore, the content is not an article produced by the author or by the editorial staff of Il Nuovo Terraglio
