Palazzo Milzetti: Alessandro Roma
- Redazione
- Aug 7
- 3 min read
Opening August 31, 2026
September 1 - October 11, 2026
A new chapter in the Milan-based artist’s long-term research.
The exhibition is centred on nature as a living, generative presence that flows through the rooms of the palace, establishing an unprecedented dialogue with the wall paintings, stucco work and decorative elements of the Neoclassical residence.
On the occasion of Argillà Italia 2026, the International Ceramics Festival, Palazzo Milzetti – National Museum of the Neoclassical Age in Romagna hosts Presenze, a solo exhibition by Alessandro Roma, promoted in collaboration with the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza. The exhibition will open on Monday, August 31 at 5:00 pm.
Curated by Domenico Iaracà, the exhibition marks a new stage in Alessandro Roma’s long-term artistic research. A Milan-based artist active in Italy and abroad, Roma began with a predominantly painterly background before progressively expanding his practice to include ceramics, collage, sculpture, textile printing, and experimentation with a wide range of techniques and materials. The exhibition is centred on nature, conceived as a living, generative presence that moves through the rooms of the palace and establishes an unprecedented dialogue with the wall paintings, stucco work, and decorations of the Neoclassical residence. Roma’s works seem to reclaim spaces that only appear to be devoid of natural elements, giving rise to inner landscapes in which lived experience and imagination converge.
The exhibition opens with an enigmatic figure resembling the plumage of an exotic bird, whose faceless form introduces visitors to a suspended universe. Room after room, multicoloured plant elements unfold, alongside stems and leaves belonging to undefined species, plates covered with luxuriant natural entanglements, and works in which shapes and colours move away from realistic representation to create an ideal herbarium and bestiary. Nature is no longer a backdrop or a merely symbolic element, but becomes the absolute protagonist. The marginal role of the human figure appears to overturn the traditional hierarchies of representation: it is nature, from which we are born and to which we return, that asserts itself as the central presence and as an inexhaustible source of forms, colours, and creative possibilities.
As the visit unfolds, visitors also encounter faces mounted on tripods and decorated on both sides. These works question the multiplicity of identity and the distance between the face shown to others and the more intimate, inner self. In this way, the human figure also moves away from mimetic representation, allowing itself to be permeated and transformed by the natural element. The dialogue with Palazzo Milzetti plays a fundamental role: the vegetal presences created by the artist encounter those already embedded in the decorations and stucco work of the rooms, ideally continuing beyond the windows into the inner garden and the spaces surrounding the recently acquired Romantic cottage.
Born in Milan in 1977, Alessandro Roma has exhibited at numerous museums and galleries in Italy and abroad. His research transforms experiences, memories and literary references into inner landscapes, making them tangible and accessible to the viewer. His works have been presented, among other venues, at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, MART in Rovereto, Museo Ettore Fico in Turin, Triennale Milano, Museo Carlo Zauli in Faenza, Casa Museo Jorn in Albissola, Museo Villa Croce in Genoa, and at galleries and institutions in London, New York, Berlin, Brussels and Paris.
The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between Palazzo Milzetti – National Museum of the Neoclassical Age in Romagna and the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, and forms part of the official programme of Argillà Italia 2026.
The works were created thanks to the contribution and expertise of several craft and ceramics workshops, including Bottega Gatti, Bottega Lega, Bottega Vignoli, Pantoù Ceramics and Elvira Keller in Faenza, Ceramiche Mazzotti in Albissola, and Ceramiche d’Arte Dolfi by Ivana Antonini in Montelupo.
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Alessandro Roma
September 1, 2026
Palazzo Milzetti
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