Marco Emmanuele's 'Palmo Panorama' Exhibition Explores Landscape Perception and Geological Time

Italian artist Marco Emmanuele presented his solo exhibition 'Palmo Panorama' at Labs Contemporary Art in Bologna from November 15, 2025, to January 10, 2026. Curated by Saverio Verini, the exhibition investigates the artist's creative approach and recent output through philosophical frameworks. Emmanuele, born in Catania in 1986, examines how landscapes form through human perception rather than existing as pre-given natural elements. The show's title references the artist's neologism 'Palmo,' derived from the verb 'to palm,' suggesting the tactile manipulation of panoramic views based on subjective experience. Works incorporate materials like sea-glass ground into paint, referencing natural cycles and geological time. Emmanuele cites German sociologist Georg Simmel's theories on landscape as requiring distance and human interpretation to emerge as coherent units. The exhibition includes sculptural elements with soil layers and imaginary streams, alongside steel castings that evoke childhood memories of building marble tracks at the beach. Silhouettes of poets Dario Bellezza, Jolanda Insana, Lucio Piccolo, Valentino Zeichen, and Giorgio Caproni appear in the works, connecting materiality with poetic fluidity. Emmanuele discusses time as relational rather than linear, influenced by contemporary physics, and highlights volcanic imagery referencing Mount Etna's transformative lava flows. The artist's process involves interrupting natural cycles to generate new meanings, working across painting and sculpture to animate light within crystalline structures. Documentation of the exhibition is available for download from the gallery's website.