Pesaro celebrates Contemporary Art Day with Michele Alberto Sereni's exhibition: The Work in Itself.

Saturday The personal exhibition of the Pesaro photographer opens on October 4th at the Suffragio Church.: 17 shots large format from which you can feel the dialogue that Sereni has developed in his career with great names in art.

Pesaro celebrates the 21st Contemporary Art Day.

Saturday October 4th, at 6:30 pm, at the Church of Suffragio, The Work in Itself will be inaugurated. Art photography and artist portraits from 1990 to 2024, Michele Alberto Sereni's solo exhibition curated by Roberto Lacarbonara, which will be open to visitors until November 16.

The exhibition is an in-depth study that was born and developed from the publishing project of the same name (published by Mainz) produced by the cultural association The New Rooms of Arezzo and created with the support of the 2024 Photography Strategy call for proposals within the "Strategic Plan for the Development of Photography in Italy and Abroad 2024-2026" implemented by the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture.

The exhibition is promoted by Municipality of Pesaro and the Pescheria Foundation – Visual Arts Center in collaboration with Pesaro Museums. The book will be presented at the inauguration in the presence of the author, curators, and publisher.

With the event by Michele Alberto Sereni – and that of Matteo Costanzo from October 3rd at the Falegnameria di Palazzo Mosca – Pesaro thus celebrates the twenty-first edition of the Contemporary Day (4 October), an annual event promoted by AMACI.

The press conference was attended by: Claudio Olmeda, President of the Pescheria Foundation – Visual Arts Center; Anna Maria Mattioli, President of the Culture Commission for the Municipality of Pesaro; and Michele Alberto Sereni. The opening greetings were given to Anna Maria Mattioli who underlined the value of the exhibition hosted in the Suffragio church, a place of culture that has become a constant venue for high-quality events that the Municipal Administration holds dear: I renew my enormous satisfaction in welcoming the works of an artist like Sereni, who communicates directly with the artists and is able to enter the work in harmony with its creator, expressing so much emotion.

Thus Claudio Olmeda: I thank Sereni for his work and for his photos which are true works of art. capable of giving strong sensations. An exhibition made of shots from which interiority emergesThis is Sereni's strength. On behalf of the Pescheria I really thank the artist.

This exhibition is a tribute to Pesaro, to the city where I was born and live and which has always welcomed and supported me; if I do this job I do it because the Municipality of Pesaro believed in me: these are the words of Michael Alberto Sereni which reconstructed his journey through the city, which began with an exhibition in 1986 dedicated to Alessandro Gallucci in the Salone Metaurense of the Palazzo Ducale.

And he continued: "When an artist works, I try to create an atmosphere where their concentration and naturalness can come out to their fullest. Often, to take a good shot, you have to take so many shots until that magic happens... My natural approach is mimetic, almost chameleonic, but there are obviously exceptions, such as when you want to do a "shared" work, as in the case of performances or collaborative projects.

What makes a form, an object, artistic? How can the gaze go beyond representation and appropriate the immaterial substance of an idea? These are two questions that permeate the entire work of Michele Alberto Sereni (Pesaro, 1958).

Because what remains of the work of art – whatever its language and materiality – is always an image, constructed and enclosed in its spatial and two-dimensional dimensions, capable of stimulating observation and reflection to the point of transcending representation and becoming a work of art in itself.

Pesaro, the Pescheria and the Marche are the first 'territories' in which Sereni practiced and frequented art photography, thanks to the meeting and collaboration with numerous Italian and international artists with whom he started an intense path of professional growth that led him to be today one of the leading figures in his sector.

In his biography – writes the curator Roberto Lacarbonara in the volume published by Magonza (Arezzo, 2025) – there is a fundamental encounter, there is a before and after Mattiacci. In 1996, with the first shots dedicated to the work of the master from the Marche, Sereni truly "leaves everything" – architectural photography, still life, corporate photography, many of his authorial and amateur explorations – for an enterprise that matures first in museums, alongside the work of masters of the past, then, with ever greater dedication and expertise, alongside contemporary artists who they find in Sereni a "dialogue factor" (Icarus) who forever links the artist's gesture with the visual destiny of the work of art.

Through the 17 large format shots present in the exhibition, it is possible to delve into the dialogues, collaborations and complicity that the photographer from Pesaro has developed featuring some of the artists most closely researched in the documentation of exhibitions and books, in scholarly activities, and at public events. A compendium of moments consigned to history, visually secured within the structure of the image and the perpetuity of its historical, "official" value.

The famous shot that portrays Jannis Kounellis in the gesture of throwing a coat, to complete and seal his installation in Pescheria in 2016; the many photographs dedicated to Pangel Icarus, dealing with the site-specific production of environmental works; the solid presence of Eliseo Mattiacci nestled between the dynamic forms of the sculpture, the lifting mechanisms, the tension and concavity of the metal surfaces; the dim light of certain rooms in which Gilberto Zorio he arranges the aerated concrete with neon, giving plastic and geometric form to his sculptures: these are moments that contemporary art literature has adopted to give the image a different, testimonial and authorial value.

Alongside these four artists, companions in the first photographic experiences of the nineties, appear the performative gestures and the works of Giovanni Anselmo, Pino Spagnulo, Pier Paolo Calzolari – here portrayed in a singular “dance” with Achille Bonito Oliva – and the many authors of subsequent generations: from Luigi Carboni to Matteo Fato, Goldschmied & Chiari, Jacob Hashimoto, Wolfgang Laib, Matteo Nasini, Marco Neri, Luigi Ontani, Sissi and Giovanni Termini.

Biography - Who is Michele Alberto Sereni?

Born in Pesaro in 1958. In 1974 he worked as a darkroom printing technician for the development and printing of black and white. Subsequently he researches and experiments in the field of photography, works culminating in the collaboration as a stage photographer with the theatre company “Il Labirinto” of Pesaro and with the creation of multiple exhibitions.

In 1987 he opened a photography studio in Pesaro and began working as a professional photographer in the industrial and publishing sectors. For publishing, Since 1989, he has collaborated on the creation and design of catalogues and monographs with institutions and public bodies, such as the Marche Region, the Municipality of Pesaro, the Civic Museums of Fano, the Cassa di Risparmio di Pesaro Foundation, the MUVE Civic Museums Foundation of Venice, the Museum of the Twentieth Century in Florence and the National Gallery of Umbria.

In 1991 he coordinated and produced the photographic reportage for the RAI PrixItalia held in Pesaro and Urbino.

Since 1992 he has collaborated with various artists on the photographic and video documentation of exhibitions and installations and the production of catalogues. such as Giovanni Anselmo, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luigi Carboni, Matteo Fato, Marco Gastini, Jacob Hashimoto, Herbert Hamak, Paolo Icaro, Jannis Kounellis, Eliseo Mattiacci, David Medalla, Marco Neri, Giulio Paolini, Luigi Ontani, Paolo Serra, Pino Spagnulo, Ettore Spalletti, Giovanni Termini, Giuliano Vangi, Gilberto Zorio.

Since 1992 he has collaborated with the Franca Mancini gallery, Pesaro.

Since 2002 he has worked with the Studio la Città gallery in Verona and collaborates with numerous galleries such as: Triebold, Basel; Niccoli, Parma; Spiralearte, Milano; Lorenzelli Gallery, Milano; Pack, Milano; Source of the Abyss art, Milano; Tonelli, Milano; Building, Milano; Lorenzo Ronchini, London; Continua, San Gimignano; Otto Gallery, Bologna; Fabio Tiboni, Bologna; Fabj-Basaglia, Rimini; Massimo Minini Gallery, Brescia; Michela Rizzo, Venice; Oredaria, Rome; Renata Fabbri, Milano; P420, Bologna; Maggiore, Bologna; Poggiali, Florence-Milano; Vannucci, Pistoia; Il Ponte, Florence; Lia Rumma, Naples-Milano; Alfonso Artiaco, Naples.

In 2004-2007 takes care of the cataloguing of artistic assets of the Civic Museums and Casa Rossini of the municipal administration and of the Cassa di Risparmio di Pesaro Foundation.

Tickets

Church of Suffragio/Pescheria Visual Arts Center, Corso XI Settembre 284, Pesaro 5 October – 16 November 2025.

Inauguration Saturday 4 October at 6:30 pm Opening hours Friday – Sunday and holidays 4 – 7 pm Entrance with Pesaro Musei card/single ticket; free for children up to 18 years old, students of the Rossini Conservatory and holders of the Pesaro Municipality Family Card Info 0721 387541 www.pesaromusei.it