EUTOPIA

On the occasion of the European Heritage Days 2025, the Museum-House of Hendrik Christian Andersen presents Manuela Bedeschi's solo exhibition entitled Eutopia, curated by Maria Giuseppina Di Monte and Valentina Filamingo.

Manuela Bedeschi, engaged in an artistic research in which light is the fundamental and prevalent, almost exclusive, element in her works over the last twenty-five years, presents light installations in specific areas of the museum in the halls of the Museum-House, constructing an itinerary that intertwines with the poetics of Hendrik Andersen and the Museum's collection itself.

The exhibition - whose title is a transcription of the Greek word opposite to utopia (literally, "non-place"), which instead signifies and identifies a "good place", understood as a place of peace and happiness - relates to the idea of ​​the visionary urban utopia of Andersen's Ideal City, with which the great Norwegian sculptor sought to develop an architecture capable of inspiring universal brotherhood. Thinking about the visions of Hendrik Christian Andersen, whose interdisciplinary eclecticism led him to transform utopian ideas and dreams into concrete forms through material, Manuela Bedeschi reflected on the visionary element of the artist. As both a painter and a sculptor, Andersen's work bridged late-nineteenth-century Symbolism and the first revolutionary aesthetic forms of the early twentieth century. In his large monumental sculptures in fact, in which he takes up the heroic nude of the classical world, Hendrik does not only want to reaffirm an ideal beauty, but he seeks the concept of a humanity that renews and rediscovers itself by linking in universal art and culture.

Manuela Bedeschi, born in Vicenza, lives and works between Verona and Bagnolo di Lonigo (Vicenza). She graduated in Sculpture and Painting from the Academy of Verona, and attended a Conceptual Art course at the Salzburg Summer Academy with R.Opalka and G.Uecker, which had a deep impact on her artistic development. She also attended various experimental graphics courses at the School and International Centre of Graphics in Venice. Her artistic production has developed in both sculpture and painting, increasingly favoring installations and site-specific interventions, emphasizing spaces with signs of light and making neon, once added to other materials, one of her primary means of expression. Her work is featured in public and private collections, and she currently exhibits in Italy and abroad.

Photo: official poster of the exhibition