Nico Vascellari's 'Pastorale' at Palazzo Reale Confronts War and Nature

During Milano Art Week 2025, Nico Vascellari presents 'Pastorale', a site-specific exhibition curated by Sergio Risaliti in the Sala delle Cariatidi of Palazzo Reale. The title references Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, contrasting the idyllic pastoral theme with the room's history of being bombed in 1943. The exhibition features a mechatronic cylindrical sculpture that periodically releases millions of seeds into the space, symbolizing regeneration and resistance against human violence. The work critiques anthropocentrism, proposing a new humanism that decenters humans in favor of all living beings. Vascellari's installation engages with the room's traumatic past—left deliberately unreconstructed after the war—and draws on iconography from Botticelli's 'Primavera' and 'Venus and Mars'. The artist emphasizes nature's superior vitality over scientific, technological, or cultural forces. The exhibition runs during Milano Art Week 2025 at Palazzo Reale.