Trieste: The widespread exhibition “AttraversaMenti” by artist Gianni Turin opened at the De Henriquez Museum. A communion between the secular and the religious

Friday January 24, Civic Museum of the War for Peace “Diego de Henriquez” (via dei Tominz 4), the widespread exhibition “CrossingMinds“: the works of theVenetian artist Gianni Turin They will also be exhibited in other buildings in the city, with subsequent inaugurations at the same time, and will remain open to visitors until Sunday 27 April.

Previously, in the morning, the initiative had been presented during a press conference, with speeches by Stefano Bianchi (Head of Historical Museums), Antonella Cosenzi (curator of the Museo de Henriquez) e Sandro Gazzola (project curator and artist).

To follow, precisely, guided tour for the public by the protagonist Gianni Turin: the artist brings his project to Trieste, a border city rich in cultures, and more specifically in new places that are symbols of the secular, historical and religious world, creating a common thread that leads the various locations to dialogue. For the first time, the three major religions participate (Jewish, Christian, Islamic).

For years professor of pictorial disciplines at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna (currently retired), in 2012 Gianni Turin started an artistic project consisting of a path of communion between the secular and religious worlds, including the socio-economic history of the last centuries.

In 2012, the project was hosted for the first time in Bologna, then in Bassano del Grappa in 2016, again in Bologna in 2017, in Venice in 2019 and, after a period of pandemic pause, in 2025 in Trieste.

Gianni Turin's works are presented as complex assemblages made up of oil-painted canvases fused with physical and sculptural elements, such as the artist's symbol, the "non-praying head", or recycled objects destined for new identities, such as a railroad tie repurposed as the arm of a Christian cross, or the threads of an ancient vineyard that have become an indelible sign of the memory of the Resistance of '44.

The works (mobile or site specific works) dialogue with the exhibition venues and the conserved elements, with the aim of creating a concert of many voices that evokes what has been, to ensure that memory is useful for human emancipation based on the love of dialogue and not on violence.

Several works come from authoritative and significant spaces: Civic Museum of Bassano del Grappa, Museum of the Hermits of Padua, Museum of San Lazzaro degli Armeni of Venice, Sanctuary of Santa Lucia of Venice, Civic Library of Bagnoli di Sopra and Monumental Complex of San Paolo of Monselice.

Partners and collaborators

The Municipality of Trieste co-organizes the exhibition, created by the Centro Studi Arte Archeologia Ambiente Onlus (province of Padua), in collaboration with the Stelio Crise National Library, the Diocese of Trieste, the Waldensian Lutheran Community, the Carlo and Vera Wagner Jewish Community Museum and the Islamic Cultural Association of Trieste.

Info and contacts

gazzolaattraversamentitrieste@gmail.com

The exhibition venues

• Stelio Crise State Library
• Diego de Henriquez War for Peace Museum (Municipality of Trieste)
• Basovizza Foiba – Documentation Centre (Municipality of Trieste)
• Museum of the Jewish Community of Trieste Carlo and Vera Wagner of Trieste
• Cathedral of St. Giusto Martire (Diocese of Trieste)
• Church of Sant'Antonio Taumaturgo (Diocese of Trieste)
• Casa Vicco, seat of the Episcopal Curia (Diocese of Trieste)
• Lutheran Church of Largo Panfili (Waldensian Lutheran Community Albert Schweitzer Study Center)
• Islamic Cultural Association of Trieste and Venezia Giulia

The universal space for culture

• Stelio Crise State Library – Brambilla Morpurgo Palace

The Library is the starting point of the route (the space was inaugurated on February 21st at 16.00 pm with presentation of the catalogue) and represents the space of memory of every culture and universal history, as a place where all morals coexist without prejudice, but only dedicated to the value of knowledge.

The artist exhibits 6 works in the reading and study rooms and a series of historical works in the 4 exhibition rooms and one work in the Studio Stelio Crise located at the end of the route.

The themes addressed are the 3 historical periods that gave rise to Gianni Turin's pictorial research: Years of Lead, Silence, Energy, which can be placed between the 70s and 80s.

A theme deeply linked to the Library is the placement of the work Smarrimento, placed in 17 in the Studio of Giosuè Carducci in the House-Museum of Bologna, placed in recent months in the Studio Stelio Crise, in dialogue with the manuscript Miramar forming part of the poetic work Odi Barbare.

Places of history

• “Diego de Henriquez” War for Peace Museum

In the Henriquez Museum (inauguration Friday 24th January) Turin faces the theme of the tragedy of war and his works, as well as the museum, aim to make the memory indelible to ensure that disasters do not happen again.

Some works have been installed on the vehicles on display, others placed in the museum's temporary exhibition rooms. The themes are related to Great War, to War of Resistance andHolocaust, to continue through the 20th and 21st centuries with works dedicated to recent issues such as Hostages executed by ISIS and the even more current works for theUkraine and the Gaza conflict.

The techniques applied are acrylic, oil and fresco painting and new dada sculptural techniques with pictorial applications and parts modelled with wax stucco.

• Basovizza Foiba – Documentation Center (inauguration on February 22nd at 10.30 am)

La Foiba represents the preserved physical place, where the violence was committed. Turin's works, located in the annexed Documentation Center, reflect on the meanings of life and its value placed between earthly and spiritual life, a theme that has always been mysterious for the human being, to which the beliefs of religions are linked.

Being a hotly debated theme in Humanism as a Petrarchan disagreement, in Turin it becomes an authentic “abyss”, as expressed in the work Tunnel placed at the entrance.

Religious confessions

• Museum of the Jewish Community of Trieste Carlo and Vera Wagner (expected opening) from February 22)

La Jewish Community It is the oldest identity and its museum reality represents the bond of this people with memory, as a necessary element to improve themselves and the world.

These aspects are fundamental to Turin's work, which in the spaces of the Museum places itself at the research into the common origins of all participating confessions, felt by the artist as the principle of a common dialogue.

Judaism being the beginning, Turin proposes the theme of Genesis, according to the tradition of the Sefer Torah.

• Cathedral of St. Justus Martyr

Il Christianity It was born in Roman history and the Cathedral represents the origin of the confession as well as its own history linked to the numerous renovations with elements of spoliation.

The artist places works that exalt one of the primordial values ​​of Christianity: the hope, linked to the meaning of life as an exodus and destiny, perceived by man as mysterious concepts, around which the charm of existence is hidden.

The topics covered are the Cross, the symbols of Α Ω and the structure of the “door” as a sign of passage and opening.

The works of San Giusto will be included in the Jubilee of Artists which will be inaugurated on February 4th at 18.30 pm.

• Church of St. Anthony the Wonderworker

In Sant'Antonio, Turin exhibits the miracle of the lives saved in the dramatic streets of the sea, in which the continuous exodus is narrating the great socio-political change, which is evolving in these decades.

The issue, hotly debated in the political classes and in the media, remains a topic still without solutions. Turin raises the dramatic condition of shipwrecks with two symbolic works, including an immersive one, which makes the “well-off” spectator present in the drama of life in the world forced into despair.

The installations close with a reflection on the flows of existence, including the passage between physical life and spiritual life.

• Casa Vicco, seat of the Episcopal Curia (expected opening) from February 22)

The seat of the Bishop's Curia represents, after San Giusto and Sant'Antonio, the place of welcome, interpreted by the artist as a maternal womb, as a safe and welcoming place.

The work on display, which came from the Island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni in Venice, was originally conceived in memory of the Armenian exodus and is now presented as a symbolic work in honor of universal welcome.

• Lutheran Church of Largo Panfili

Lutherans, Waldenses, Methodists, among the youngest of the Christian confessions participating in the project, link the work of Turin to the theme of the inner revolution, in the sense of the great change that the human being achieves in his life.

Rebirth also occurs in the temporal dimension and the works presented look at the transition phase between life and death, in the real and symbolic sense of the term, perceived as a space for renewal.

• Islamic Cultural Association of Trieste (expected opening) from February 22)

La Islamic confession collaborates for the first time in this great project, completing it and leading the artist back to a different vision of art, devoid of animated figures and predominantly symbolic.

Turin recovers the numbers, perhaps the strongest link in the common DNA with Western culture.

THEIslamic Cultural Association carries out an important mediation work in the reality of Trieste, as the artist's work intends to be in the recovery of tradition and in the action of dialogue between differences.