PIETRO RUFFO: L’ULTIMO MERAVIGLIOSO MINUTO
Un gesto artistico che indaga il tema estremamente attuale e discusso del rapporto tra essere umano e pianeta
2024
Review by Beatrice
29 October 2024 – 16 February 2025
Palazzo Esposizioni Roma
curated by Sébastien Delot
PRESS RELEASE
From 29 October 2024 to 16 February 2025, Palazzo Esposizioni Roma will host a
solo exhibition by Pietro Ruffo entitled L’ultimo meraviglioso minuto (The Final
Marvellous Minute). Curated by Sébastien Delot, Director of the Collection at the
Musée National Picasso-Paris, the exhibition is promoted by Assessorato alla
Cultura di Roma Capitale and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, produced and organised
by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo.
L’ultimo meraviglioso minuto, the most extensive solo exhibition of Pietro Ruffo’s work
ever held by a public institution, brings together a diverse body of work that forms a
unified narrative—a long and intricate journey through space and time, culminating in
a grand tribute to the city of Rome.
More than 50 works, specially created by the artist for four rooms on the piano nobile
of the Palazzo Esposizioni, constitute an artistic gesture that explores the highly topical
and debated theme of the relationship between human beings and the planet. This is
presented from a fresh and courageous perspective, inviting reflection on the potential
‘marvel’ of our presence on Earth.
Already acknowledged by critics and the international public, Pietro Ruffo is
participating in the 2024 Venice Biennale with a major installation entitled L’immagine
del mondo (The Image of the World). Some of his works have been acquired by
notable collections—including the Vatican Museums, the MAXXI, and the Deutsche
Bank Foundation—and this exhibition at the Palazzo Esposizioni marks a highly
dynamic and vital moment in his career.
THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition plays on the dilation and contraction of time and space. Its aim is to
convey extremely long timescales, for us unfathomable—those of the history of the
planet and humanity—within the singular space and time of the encounter with the
artworks.
It all began with an adventure during Ruffo's residency at the Nirox Foundation, where,
through his friendship with world-renowned anthropologist and palaeontologist Lee
Berger, he had an experience that profoundly shaped his work: a visit to one of the
most iconic sites in human history, the Cradle of Humankind, a paleoanthropological
site located near Johannesburg, South Africa, where the first primate in history was
discovered.The exhibition begins 55 million years ago. The title of the first room, Le monde avant
la création de l’homme (The World Before the Creation of Man), is borrowed from the
book by Camille Flammarion, subtitled “origines de la terre, origines de la vie, origines
de l’humanité" (The Origins of the Earth, the Origins of Life, the Origins of Humanity)
(1886), a text that Ruffo read as a teenager and has since rediscovered for both its
literary merit and the magnificent engraved plates that depict how, in the late 19th
century, the world before the ‘creation’ of man was imagined.
Ruffo outlines the characteristic elements of this planet. Using a ballpoint pen, he
draws a primordial forest, creating a vast curtain (700 square metres) that runs along
the entire perimeter of the space (Primordial Forest), surrounding visitors with images
of plants and minerals, evoking the time when tropical jungles covered much of the
Earth's surface. The room is intersected by a large self-supporting structure (4 metres
by 21), on which he depicts a section of the Grand Canyon, painted in ink on canvased
paper using the camaïeu technique (utilising different tones of the same colour, in this
case, burnt sienna). Beyond this grand structure, the public finds themselves walking
among traces of the Earth’s past life: 21 circular works of varying sizes, titled De
Hortus, float like water lilies on the white floor, creating a chromatic atmosphere of
great visual impact.
The exhibition journey then moves into the Anthropocene, the geological era in which
the Earth’s environment—understood as the sum of the physical, chemical, and
biological characteristics that support and evolve life—has been influenced by the
effects of human activity. The palaeoclimatologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes, in her
renowned work Neanderthals: Life, Art, Love and Death, referring to Carl Sagan's
'cosmic calendar', writes: "If we boil down the Universe’s 13.8 billion years to a period
of twelve months, the dinosaurs would appear around Christmas time – unbelievable!
– while the first Homo Sapiens would only arrive on the scene a few minutes before
the New Year’s fireworks.” It is to these fleeting last minutes of our planet’s history that
the subsequent three rooms are dedicated, where Pietro Ruffo explores human
intervention in search of 'marvel'.
In the second room, which showcases works on canvased paper, with cuts and ink
drawings, visitors are immersed in a visual archive symbolically retracing the steps of
our ancestors' evolution, from the Neanderthal skulls of Saccopastore to votive
figurines, the first emblem of abstract thought upon which societies are built.
In the third room, with a radical change of scenery, visitors are enveloped in a video
installation titled The Planetary Garden, created in collaboration with Noruwei. Inspired
by the eponymous text by French philosopher Gilles Clément, the work gives three-
dimensional form to the movement, shift, and transformation of the landscape over
time.
The final room, titled Antropocene attraverso le stratificazioni di Roma (The
Anthropocene Through the Stratifications of Rome), features works entirely dedicated
to the city. What was Rome like 2,777 years ago, at the time of its founding? And even
earlier, when the streets we walk today were trodden by jaguars and rhinoceroses?Starting with the famous maps of the city by Giovanni Battista Nolli (1701-1756) and
Luigi Canina (1775-1856), Ruffo overlays these with unexpected glimpses of natural
landscapes, offering a novel walk through the history and prehistory of the Roman
territory. The works in this room allow visitors to move from the depths of the sea
(Anthropocene 77, Rome Under the Sea), to the primordial forest (Anthropocene 92,
Rome Covered by a Primordial Forest), and then to the theatre of great architectural
constructions (Anthropocene 51, Rome Imperial Period; Anthropocene 53, Rome
Porta Maggiore, and others). The anthology of landscapes explored in these works
presents a mosaic of historical and hypothetical future moments, in which each
transformation is simultaneously the consequence of natural events and human
intervention. Cuts in canvased paper, pen drawings, oil paintings, and reliefs come
together in a compositional harmony that invites deep observation.
“To understand the infancy of our planet, we must look deep beneath its surface.
Strange as it may seem, the Earth is very much alive. The face of the Earth changes
over time. Rediscovering this lost infancy means understanding what has happened
deep within,” writes curator Sébastien Delot.
Through ‘marvel, Ruffo, using the artist’s tools and the power of his works, offers a
unique visual experience, shedding new light on the environmental issues that
permeate our everyday existence in society.
The exhibition will feature a catalogue curated by Sébastien Delot, with contributions
from the curator, Guido Rebecchini, Rebecca Wragg Sykes, and Sofia Di Gravio,
published by Drago.
PRESS RELEASE AND PHOTOS > Ufficio stampa | Palazzo Esposizioni Roma
PRESS OFFICE
AZIENDA SPECIALE PALAEXPO
Piergiorgio Paris | M. +39 347 8005911 - [email protected]
Federica Mariani | M. +39 366 6493235 - [email protected]
Adele Della Sala | M. +39 366 4435942 - [email protected]
Segreteria: Dario Santarsiero | T. +39 06 69627 1205 - [email protected];
Palazzo Esposizioni Roma
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