IT

At the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice, the exhibition “Disapparire. Antonio Corradini e Luigi Ghirri” establishes an unexpected dialogue between the veiled sculptures by Antonio Corradini and the rarefied photographs by Luigi Ghirri. Through the motif of the veil, the exhibition explores the threshold between image and reality, suggesting that truth rarely presents itself directly but instead emerges through the filtering lens of art and imagination.

A soft, diffused light seems to illuminate the metaphysical architectures that inhabit Ghirri’s (Scandiano, 1943 – Roncocesi, 1992) compositions. This muted glow permeates the landscapes and interiors captured by the photographer, projecting them into the incorporeal realm of images. In much the same way, the enigmatic veiled sculptures by Antonio Corradini (Venice, 1688 – Naples, 1752) appear to be shaped by light itself, so that their forms seem almost intangible to the eye. In both cases, the works evoke a reality in the process of dissolving, an unstable space suspended between presence and absence, light and shadow, reality and its representation.
On view at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia until 12 April 2026, the exhibition Disapparire. Antonio Corradini e Luigi Ghirri brings the works of the two artists into resonance. Despite belonging to very different historical periods, Corradini and Ghirri share a strikingly similar pursuit: the creation of images that are veiled, elusive and difficult to grasp. Curated by Elisabetta Dal Carlo, Lara Marchese, Marta Savaris and Babet Trevisan with Monica De Vincenti, the exhibition reflects the cultural vision promoted by the foundation’s director Cristiana Collu, which encourages encounters between different eras, languages and sensibilities in order to prompt reflection on the urgencies of the present.
The project also responds closely to the history and collections of the museum itself. Ghirri’s photographs belong to a group of works entrusted to the foundation on loan by the collector Roberto Lombardi since 2015. Yet the immediate impetus for the exhibition was the recent rediscovery, in the museum’s storage, of a marble medallion depicting the Veiled Faith, subsequently recognised as an autograph work by Corradini.

ANTONIO CORRADINI AND LUIGI GHIRRI IN VENICE

For the Baroque sculptor Antonio Corradini, the veil became the defining element of his artistic language. Draped across the figures he carved, it marks a delicate boundary between what is revealed and what remains hidden, between material presence and spiritual meaning. Within the same gallery, Corradini’s eighteenth-century sculptures encounter a selection of photographs by Ghirri. Through his work, the contemporary artist redefined the landscape of Emilia as the site of both a formal and conceptual investigation into the nature of images. The urban views and plains captured in his photographs are punctuated by signs and simulacra – thresholds, frames, transparent and reflective surfaces – that create a constant slippage between the world and its visual representation.
In the works presented in the exhibition, images appear almost as uneasy premonitions of their own existence, never fully secure but permanently held in tension. In the two versions of the Veiled Faith – the bas-relief preserved at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia and the full-length bust at Ca’ Rezzonico – the female face never fully reveals itself. Instead, it emerges only partially through the opaque transparency of the marble veil carved by Corradini. A terracotta model for the Veiled Christ, originally commissioned for the Cappella Sansevero in Naples – though the final marble version was later executed by Giuseppe Sanmartino – presents a figure that seems to dematerialise even as it appears before us, as if it were the trace of a visual idea never fully realised. In Corradini’s work, the veil invites viewers to suspend immediate sensory perception and instead adopt a more inward, contemplative gaze.
Similarly, the plains, squares and churches depicted in Ghirri’s photographs – such as Bologna. Villa near Gaiana, Cittanova di Modena. Church on the Via Emilia, and Brescello. Square and the Church of Santa Maria – transport viewers into a suspended, almost timeless dimension. Hovering between reality and imagination, these images seem to surface from the fragile territory of memory. Ghirri’s mist-laden photographs and Corradini’s veiled sculptures do not present themselves directly to the viewer. Rather, they resist immediate comprehension, generating a persistent desire for revelation. The image thus emerges as an ongoing process – a continual making and unmaking that renews our gaze upon the world and its shifting nature.

THE EXHIBITION AT THE FONDAZIONE QUERINI STAMPALIA

The display itself appears to visitors almost as an apparition. A white curtain marks the threshold of the gallery, inviting them to step into a rarefied environment in which the motif of the veil extends across the exhibition space, creating a continuum between artwork and architecture. The walls are rendered almost immaterial by the spectacular presence of white drapery, whose luminous folds seem to hold the works suspended within them. Images and space appear to dissolve into one another, forming a dialogue that resonates strongly with the city that hosts the exhibition. Indeed, Venice itself is an unstable ecosystem shaped by light and water, where reflections and presences continually blur together. In such a setting, perception is inevitably filtered, never entirely transparent or fixed.
The works of the two artists ultimately suggest that grasping reality in its essence requires more than an immediate and direct gaze. Instead, a mediating filter – art, imagination, or fantasy – is needed to transform appearances into meaning. The veil invites us to slow down, to imagine unexpected connections and to question what we see. In this sense, veiled images become re-veiled: charged with a latent truth that viewers themselves must learn to perceive.

Alessandro Cerchier

The exhibition Disapparire. Antonio Corradini e Luigi Ghirri at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice

The text has been translated in English using AI