Dialoguing with places: Roberta Semeraro and her exhibitions in the heart of Venice

A journey through genius loci, female memory, and contemporary art in the historic halls of the Scuola dei Carmini and Palazzo Mocenigo

Roberta, you argue that an artist should engage with the soul of a place. How do you recognize when this dialogue is authentic and not just scenic?

I will answer you with a fundamental example from my career: the work with Beverly Pepper, a great American artist, during the project I conceived for the city of L’Aquila right after the earthquake.

The goal was to help the community reconnect with their places, suddenly shattered by the cataclysm. Beverly chose to intervene in an area near the Basilica of Collemaggio, a natural amphitheater that the people of L’Aquila had always used as a space for gathering and performance. For that place, she imagined one of her famous amphiscultures: a large amphitheater sculpted into the landscape, a land art piece that would engage with the natural formation.

I recounted this experience in a book published by Progedit and presented at the Turin Book Fair, because there I truly understood what it means to engage with a place, not to build a set.

Beverly did not just give an artistic form to the space: she listened to the place. She wanted the work to emerge from its deep identity. I remember she was fixated on the idea of using the same pink stone from the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio. The quarries were already exhausted, so we even found ourselves wandering through mountain cemeteries searching for fragments of that material. A surreal experience, but brilliant in its stubbornness.

Despite her advanced age – during the last site visits she was already in a wheelchair – Beverly insisted on visiting every corner of the construction site. The engineers from Eni, who financed the work, still remember how determined she was: she wanted to position herself in various spots, observe, and contemplate for a long time. It was the place that suggested the form to her, not the other way around. The terraces, the stage, the lines of the amphitheater: everything emerged from the natural geography.

The result was astonishing. When the citizens of L’Aquila saw the work, they felt as if it had always been there. Today it is a lived space: kids gather after school, families stroll, mothers bring their children. It has become a place of the soul, not an object dropped from above.

There is also a curious episode that I recount in the book. Between the executive project and the start of the works, four years passed due to the complex Italian procedures: superintendencies, landscape constraints, authorizations. When the time finally came to build, Beverly showed up with a new project, full of variations. In those four years, she had continued to engage with the work in her mind. Of course, it was not possible to implement those changes, but that episode well illustrates what it means for an artist to experience a place as an evolving process.

Beverly always said: “I arrived here and I listened. I imposed nothing. It was the people and the place that told me what to do.”
And I believe this is the heart of the authentic dialogue between art and territory.

After the experience with Beverly Pepper, I found the same authentic approach to dialogue with the place in the work of Anna Peter Breton at the Scuola Grande dei Carmini. I am particularly proud of this, as I believe I have identified the perfect artist for such a complex context.

The Scuola Grande dei Carmini houses an extraordinary Baroque decorative apparatus: paintings by Tiepolo, stuccoes, gilding, a very rich and powerful ensemble. Anna, on the other hand, is a silent, measured artist, capable of listening. For this reason, her intervention integrates naturally: it does not overshadow, does not compete, but dialogues.

To prepare, he studied deeply the Marian virtues, the contaminations between sacred and profane, the celestial iconographies, the scriptures. He sought to understand the genius loci not only as a physical space but as a secular tradition, as a living memory of the School. And the result is a work that does not impose itself but aligns with the space, follows its lines, and respects its voice.

This, for me, is the unmistakable sign of authentic dialogue: when the work inhabits the space without occupying it, when it is present without appearing intrusive, when it seems to have been born there, almost inevitably. The set design, on the contrary, is an addition: you enter a room and immediately sense that something has been arranged, layered, imposed.

In the case of Anna Peter Breton, there is none of this. There is no imposition or overlap. There is a deep listening, an alignment with the space, a presence that merges with the context. This is how you recognize when an artist is truly engaging with a place: when the work does not transform the space, but reveals it.

There was also Portoghesi’s conference, you had mentioned that he had impressed you…

Yes, I remember a wonderful conference by Paolo Portoghesi at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome. He was already elderly, but spoke with extraordinary clarity. From his perspective as an architect, he explained how every architecture must find meaning in its form and spaces in order to have a soul, a true identity. It’s a concept that has stayed with me since then: a place is never neutral, it is an interlocutor.

The preparatory phase fascinates you a lot, perhaps more than the final setup. What happens at that moment that doesn’t happen anymore after the opening?

The preparatory phase is a unique moment. Today we work in a super technological era: rendering, executive projects, simulations. Ten years ago it was different: we worked much more on-site, with fewer digital mediations and more surprises.

In restricted places – museums, churches, historic buildings – everything is tried to be resolved “on paper” to avoid problems. But for me, the real magic begins when the construction site opens. It is there that what you have imagined for months takes shape. The curator must harmonize their vision with that of the artist and the institutions, without imposing anything.

When the construction site comes to life, a contagious enthusiasm is born. Art has this magic: it is a driving force of energy and joy that involves everyone working on the site.

This year, we present two exhibitions in two powerful locations: the Scuola dei Carmini and Palazzo Mocenigo. Why these spaces and why now?

The Scuola Grande dei Carmini has come about thanks to a call from the Grand Guardian, Franco Campiutti. The Schools, once supported by legacies, now face enormous management and restoration costs. The Scuola dei Carmini houses an extraordinary but also very fragile Baroque heritage. Operating here is complex: constraints, regulations, and very delicate balances. But it is also my natural field, as I have been working in churches and historical places for years.

For this project, I chose Anna Peter Breton, a Franco-Hungarian artist with an ethereal, almost watercolor-like painting style. We had already collaborated for Il Settimo Cielo. I thought her delicacy could create a pause of silence within the baroque apparatus of the School: a poetic counterpoint to its rich splendor.

We decided to intervene on the darkest windows, creating seven skies, two for each one. These are visual pauses that integrate perfectly with the architecture. I can’t wait to see them installed.

You also mentioned the little-known history of Pizzocchere. Has this influenced your feminine reading of the place?

Exactly. It is surprising how the genius loci of this space is profoundly feminine. I am a woman, a curator; the artist, Anna Peter Breton, is a woman with an intense family history: her mother came from Kyrgyzstan and her grandmother was almost a healer, a figure who traversed the nomadic villages carrying with her ancient knowledge.

And then there is the Scuola Grande dei Carmini, which originates from a female confraternity: the Pizzocchere, devoted to the Virgin of Carmel. This is an exceptional fact, because in Venice – as elsewhere – the Schools were almost always founded by men. This was the only one founded by women.

The Pizzocchere were self-managed and self-financed through the production and sale of scapulars, votive garments to be worn close to the skin for protection against evil, especially during plagues. They were sacred, intimate fabrics tied to the tradition of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, who, according to legend, gave the scapular to Saint Simon Stock as a symbol of hope and protection.

This female story spans the centuries and reaches the eighteenth century, when Giambattista Tiepolo paints the Chapter Hall dedicating it to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the Marian Virtues. In my opinion, these are some of his most beautiful masterpieces in Venice. Everything in this place speaks of women, care, and spirituality. A female space.

What has been the toughest challenge in bringing together Tiepolo and Baroque in this exhibition?

Do you know that in reality there was no challenge? It was all natural.

When you look out the windows of the School, what do you see? The sky. Anna simply brings forth what already exists, but transforms it into a more intense experience. Her skies are clearer, more imaginative, more open than those you glimpse through the barred windows.

By incorporating his paintings, the windows seem to open wide to seven metaphysical skies, skies that elevate the gaze and spirit to God. It’s as if space had always awaited them. There is no contrast with the Baroque, no competition with Tiepolo: there is a natural, almost inevitable dialogue.

I simply “found” them inside the place.

Now let’s move on to Palazzo Mocenigo. Define Palazzo Mocenigo as “the essence of Venetian identity.” What does Venetian identity mean today in a museum?

Venice reached one of its highest moments of artistic expression between the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries, and Palazzo Mocenigo perfectly embodies that atmosphere: richness of fabrics, furnishings, fragrances, traditions. It is no coincidence that it houses the Center for Textile, Fashion, and Fragrance Studies.

There is also a fascinating story related to the Mocenigo family: Caterina Cornaro, who cultivated the famous Mocenigo rose in the villa of Alvisopoli, a precious and almost legendary variety. Palazzo Mocenigo is one of my favorite museums, along with Palazzo Fortuny: entering it is like stepping into an authentic Venetian home, suspended in time.

Despite the tourist pressure and contemporaneity, Venice remains resilient. There are places that preserve their identity intact, and Palazzo Mocenigo is one of them. For this reason, it is a complex context for an exhibition: the permanent collection is very rich, and the Civic Museums have a policy of not altering the environments.

Contemporary art, however, can create surprising dialogues if the right artist is chosen. And that is what happened with Mouna Rebeiz.

When I presented the series of works dedicated to the tarbouche – the traditional Middle Eastern hat – it was love at first sight. Rebeiz’s painting is sensual, feminine, but also classical, almost Renaissance: it blends with the interiors of the palace without overwhelming them.

We are even moving some small paintings to accommodate his works, but the place doesn’t seem altered in the slightest. The dialogue is perfect.

The exhibition will also include creations from international designers, some of whom participated in the major exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in 2015, where Rebeiz combined art and fashion in a charitable project.

And then there is a special element: the Civic Museums display the Doge’s hat, and the artist is creating site-specific works that connect the tarbouche with this Venetian symbol.

The common thread of the exhibition will be the fabric because the paintings will have a fabric passe-partout by Rubelli. There is also a cabinet entirely covered, making the fabric a continuous dialogue between Rebeiz’s painting and Palazzo Mocenigo, between fashion and Venetian history.

In the exhibition titled: The tarbouche, when the accessory becomes a symbol,

This traditionally masculine hat becomes a symbol of female power in its canvases, so much so that Rebeiz places it on her beautiful monumental faceless nudes, transforming it into an emblem of identity, emancipation, and strength.

The tarbouche tells exactly this story: an object that changes meaning, that traverses cultures and centuries, and that transforms from a masculine symbol to a feminine symbol, symbolizing that this power shifts from man to woman and restores identity to these faceless nudes by Mouna Rebeiz.