ALEX DA CORTE. Sun and Shadow
A production by The Blank Contemporary Art curated by Stefano Raimondi
November 13 – January 17
Opening Thursday, November 12, 2026, at 6:00 PM
The Blank is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Alex Da Corte (1980, Camden, NJ), on view at Palazzo della Ragione in Bergamo from November 13, 2026, to January 17, 2027. Curated by Stefano Raimondi, the exhibition marks a new chapter in the dialogue between the city, its historical heritage, and international contemporary artistic practices.
The project is part of the ongoing research and exhibition programme that The Blank has developed over the years at Palazzo della Ragione, presenting exhibitions that have played a significant role in the cultural life of the city and featured artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Matt Mullican, Giulio Paolini, and many others. This programme has helped consolidate Bergamo’s role as a privileged platform for artistic experimentation and for encounters between the public and the visual languages of our time.
Alex Da Corte’s exhibition offers an immersive journey into the artist’s visionary universe. Throughout his career, Da Corte has developed a distinctive exhibition practice that has brought his work into dialogue with some of the world’s leading museums and cultural institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Sun and Shadow is a monumental 16 × 12-metre carpet, characterised by a powerful symbolic dimension and a sophisticated use of colour and imagery. The work transforms the exhibition space into a magical environment where memory and identity intertwine in ambiguous and poetic ways.
The motif running across the carpet originates from an apparently simple image: a flower. On closer inspection, however, something seems amiss. The flower appears to have bent over, almost collapsing to the ground, while its shadow remains upright. It is as though the image and its shadow no longer agree on what is happening.
Alex Da Corte has created an image that can be experienced from every direction. Depending on where we stand, the flower may appear fragile and its shadow strong, or vice versa. What initially seems like a fall can become a rebirth; what appears to be a defeat can transform into a new form of growth.
The artist describes this work as a message about life. Growing upwards and downwards. Falling. Rising again. Returning. Within the flower, vulnerability and resilience, loss and transformation coexist. As is often the case in Alex Da Corte’s work, an image that draws on the visual language of comics and illustration contains a deeper reflection on the human condition.
The field of grass surrounding the flower further contributes to this sense of ambiguity. The artist envisions the carpet as a vast artificial meadow, a synthetic landscape made of textile fibres and colours produced through a printing process that recalls techniques associated with twentieth-century popular culture and comic books. Walking across its surface, visitors enter a landscape that is at once familiar and artificial, real and imagined.
Through the encounter between the flower, its shadow, and the field that surrounds them, the work invites us to consider how every experience can be viewed from different perspectives. There is no single, definitive point of view. As in life, what appears to be a fall today may reveal itself tomorrow as the beginning of new growth.
For the occasion, a new audio guide will be presented, offering visitors an opportunity to explore in greater depth the frescoes and history of Palazzo della Ragione, as well as Alex Da Corte’s work.
The exhibition is produced by The Blank Contemporary Art with the support and contribution of Fondazione Cariplo as part of the broader Made In project. The project is developed in collaboration with Palazzo Monti and made possible through partnerships with Aquafil S.p.A., one of the world’s leading manufacturers of synthetic fibres made from recycled materials, and Radici Pietro Industries & Brands S.p.A. Both companies share a strong commitment to sustainability and cutting-edge research.
The ARTDATE Festival is realised with the support of Regione Lombardia and in cultural partnership with the Municipality of Bergamo.
THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART was founded in 2010 and has since become one of Italy’s leading organisations dedicated to contemporary art, organising internationally significant events, engaging prominent artists, and collaborating with museums, foundations, companies, and professionals through a wide range of artistic and cultural projects, including exhibitions, residencies, productions, studio visits, permanent projects in public spaces, and publications. Recognised by Regione Lombardia as an organisation of regional significance, The Blank has worked with artists including Yayoi Kusama, Matt Mullican, Francesco Vezzoli, Lawrence Weiner, Giulio Paolini, Pipilotti Rist, Ed Atkins, and many others.
Alex Da Corte (1980, Camden, New Jersey) is a Venezuelan-American artist. His major institutional exhibitions include the survey exhibitions The Whale at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2025), Fresh Hell at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan (2023), and Mr. Remember at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark (2022–23); the Whitney Biennial, Quiet as It’s Kept (2022); the Roof Garden Commission for The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2021); the Venice Biennale, May You Live in Interesting Times (2019); the 57th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh (2019); and solo exhibitions at Glenstone, Potomac (2025); Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2018); Secession, Vienna (2016); Art + Practice, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2016); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2015); and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2014, with Jayson Musson). In 2026, together with Meg Onli of the Whitney Museum, Da Corte will co-curate the first Roy Lichtenstein retrospective in New York in more than 30 years.
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