Vincenzo Vela Bicentennial Exhibition at Museo Vincenzo Vela

The Museo Vincenzo Vela in Ligornetto, Switzerland, reopened the exhibition 'Vincenzo Vela (1820-1891). Poesia del reale' on October 25, 2020, running until December 5, 2021, to mark the bicentenary of the sculptor's birth. The show expands the permanent collection with 12 sections exploring both Vela's artistic realism and his political activism as a radical republican fighting for Italian and Swiss independence. A pioneer of verismo sculpture, Vela also innovatively used early photography, with a dedicated section. Loans from other institutions include plaster casts, death masks, drawings, and photographs. A guided tour app, smARTravel, offers content in Italian and German. Vela was born in Ligornetto in 1820, studied at Accademia di Brera, worked in Milan and Turin, and taught at Accademia Albertina from 1856 to 1867. He returned to Ligornetto in 1867, building the villa that now houses the museum, and died in 1891. His later works include 'Le vittime del lavoro' (1882), a high-relief monument to workers who died building the Gotthard Tunnel.