MILAN.- Palazzo Reale in Milan is presenting the largest-ever solo exhibition of the works of Valerio Berruti, one of the most intense and significant artists on the contemporary landscape. Through the wonders of his works, with monumental sculptures, installations, videos, and an actual carousel that visitors can climb onto, Valerio Berruti takes us on a journey that begins from childhood – the moment when everything is still possible – to touch upon universal themes that generate spaces for profound reflection, able to speak to children and adults alike.
Promoted by Municipality of Milan – Culture, Valerio Berruti. More than kids is produced and organized by Palazzo Reale and Arthemisia, in collaboration with Piuma and with the support of Fondazione Ferrero, which has organized a show in Alba featuring site- specific works by the artist being shown for the first time, along with some preparatory pieces leading up to the Milan exhibition.
Curated by Nicolas Ballario, the exhibition project is a journey inside the artist’s poetics through key pieces in his production – like the large sculpture/carousel, titled La giostra di Nina, featuring original music by Ludovico Einaudi – and works never shown before and being presented for the first time in Milan, such as Don’t let me be wrong, the large sculpture in Palazzo Reale’s courtyard with music by Daddy G from Massive Attack. Two new video animation works – Lilith, with a soundtrack by Rodrigo D’Erasmo, and Cercare silenzio with sound by Subsonica’s historic vocalist Samuel Romano – join the earlier animated pieces set to music by the likes of Paolo Conte and Ryuichi Sakamoto, among others.
Over the years, Valerio Berruti has developed a recognizable and profoundly authentic language. Through the age old techniques of frescos, monumental sculptures, drawings, videos, and installations, the artist brings life to a universe populated by childlike figures suspended in time.
As the exhibition’s subtitle “More than kids” suggests, his “children” do not recount a merely personal story, but become collective symbols that show childhood as a place of belonging, a place where we all have been, but also a future: one that is possible, and yet to be written.
Berruti’s works are not just to be looked at: they are to be walked through, and lived in. When traversing them, we are called upon to move, to take part. Some installations involve the viewer directly: a group of children in a circle invites us into a suspended dimension; a girl floats in water, evoking the need to be rescued; large birds carry off in flight those who choose to climb onto a large artwork inspired by vintage carousels, poised in an equilibrium between apparent lightness and natural strength.
Another theme dear to the artist is climate change, prominently featured in his most recent works and represented in the exhibition by “Nel silenzio,” in which three girls are resting on a sunburnt earth; or the already mentioned “Don't let me be wrong,” a monumental sculpture in which to attend the screening of the short film by the same name, made with about 800 sequenced drawings accompanied by an original soundtrack composed by Daddy G (founder of the cult band Massive Attack), along with his historic producer Stew Jackson.
“With this extensive solo exhibition, Berruti transforms into a director who, room after room, touches on all the major themes of contemporary life – says curator Nicolas Ballario –. His works are not about childhood, but use that period of life, when anything is still possible, to ask us whether there is still time to change things. His figures are never complete, because it is the viewer who decides their fate and origin. Do we see ourselves in them? The monumentality of the works on display somehow tells us that we cannot pretend not to see. Those who look away are complicit.”
Valerio Berruti
Born in Alba in 1977, in 2009 he took part in the 53rd Venice Biennale, where he presented a video animation featuring the music of Paolo Conte, composed of 600 frescoed drawings. In 2011, his video Kizuna, shown at Pola Museum in Tokyo and set to an original soundtrack by Ryuichi Sakamoto, became a benefit project for Japan’s rebuilding after the devastation left by the earthquake. The following year, he won the international Luci d'artista prize in Turin, and produced a permanent work of land art at the Nirox Foundation in Johannesburg. In 2018, he began work on La giostra di Nina, a short animated film co-produced by Sky Arte, with music by Ludovico Einaudi. The large carousel was exhibited in the autumn of 2018 in the Church of San Domenico in Alba, and subsequently at MAXXI - Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo and at the Venaria Reale. In 2022, his monumental work Alba, a gift from the Ferrero family to the city of Alba, was inaugurated. A stainless steel sculpture over 12 metres in height, it was placed in Piazza Michele Ferrero, a square in the town’s historic centre named for the entrepreneur, an Alba native. In May 2024, his solo exhibition Circulating sketch opened in China in the prestigious Teagan Space in Youyi Bay, Beijing district.
THE EXHIBITION
A Safe Place
A life buoy is an object that – even within the same sea – can carry very different meanings. On “our” shores, it’s a colorful toy, a ring often decorated with cartoon characters that keeps children company in the water. Move just a few dozen miles away, however, and it takes on another role entirely: that of last hope, of survival for those who risk crossing the Mediterranean in search of a better, happier life. In Italian, the expression “mischiare le acque” (to mix the waters) refers to confusion or disorder. And that is exactly what has happened in this room. Something unexpected has pushed human beings, born on the luckier side of the world, out into the sea. Valerio Berruti compels us to become castaways, to empathize, to recognize that it was only by chance that the waters were “mixed” in our favor. The room’s soundtrack was specially composed by Lucio Disarò, a longtime collaborator of Berruti’s.
Un mondo nuovo
As in Plato’s allegory of the cave, the shadows can become more real than reality itself. So is the child the projected image, ideally completed by the fresco on the wall, which becomes a kind of clothing? Berruti’s art becomes dynamic through light, breaking out of two-dimensionality through illusion. This child seems to be waiting for something, as if a promise had been made. Will it be kept? Shadow is often associated with duality: good and evil, seen and hidden, what we reveal and what we keep to ourselves. But here that concept is flipped. Is this child inviting us to let go of our fears? Telling us that our shadows are part of us – and that a new world is possible if we learn to accept them? A monumental and yet delicate piece that recalls Alba, the permanent installation Berruti created in his hometown.
L’abbraccio più forte
This room is perhaps a moment of release within the exhibition – the only one where we witness physical contact between Berruti’s figures. The project is called L’abbraccio più forte (The strongest embrace), comprising dozens of drawings made in 2020 and sold to raise funds for the Verduno hospital, which was struggling to open during the Covid pandemic. Thanks to this initiative – which raised over €140,000 – Berruti not only helped the hospital open a ward for Covid patients, but also funded a mobile clinic that is still in use today to provide healthcare services to local residents. Two further works were born from those drawings: a previously unseen sculpture and a video animation for which an open call for musicians was launched. Over 100 artists from all over the world responded. The embrace – like art – is a universal gesture. And so, the visitors of More Than Kids will decide who these children are. Are they us? Who is the person we would most like to embrace right now?
Nel silenzio
The great composer Karlheinz Stockhausen once said that the attack on the Twin Towers was “the greatest work of art possible.” Of course, he was not justifying such blind violence – he was referring to the power of that event to enter the minds of everyone, to create an image from which no one could look away. Perhaps something similar could be said of the casts of victims from Pompeii’s eruption in 79 AD. This is the beauty of tragedy. With these works, Berruti warns us about society’s indifference to climate change, showing two girls as if they were part of an archaeological find of the future – bodies burned by the sun, embodying humanity. In Pompeii, after all, only those who stayed behind died – those who refused to believe the scientists warning them of the imminent eruption. Is the same thing happening again? Have we stopped believing in science? At the center of the room, the same girl recalls the spirit of Lilith – the rebellious, restless demon cast out of paradise for refusing to submit to unjust authority. Here, Berruti depicts her trapped in an unending nightmare. The installation’s soundtrack was specially composed by maestro and multi-instrumentalist Rodrigo D’Erasmo.
Aurora
Some materials speak – not loudly, but with the soft voice of those who have always been there, quietly watching time go by. Lace is one of them. Made of gaps and threads, of intricate patience, it is a fabric that waits. And in that waiting, it preserves. It holds memories we didn’t know we had. Touch it – or even just see it – and we are transported to another time, another life, worn or used by our grandmothers. But if you look closely, those threads create an unsettling optical illusion – modern, almost psychedelic. This apparent – only apparent – decorative element is enhanced by the simplicity of Berruti’s fresco, painted on jute sacks. It’s a Renaissance technique, rarely used today, on a humble material that belongs to the artist’s memory: those sacks once held the hazelnuts typical of the Langhe, the land where Berruti was born and to which he returned after traveling the world. Both works speak of childhood: the sweetness of care in the first, the refusal of authority in the child who won’t stand at attention in the second. Two essential parts of childhood – and adulthood – for all of us.
Three (part of) Me
Once again, we see the same little girl, but with three different hairstyles – three “masks,” just as Japanese tradition describes the three faces of every person. The first is the one we show to the world: polite, composed, socially acceptable. The second is what we show to those we love – our family, our friends. It’s more authentic, but still filtered. The third is the one we never show anyone: the deepest self, sometimes hidden even from ourselves. That is our essence – our most secret thoughts, fears, and desires. This installation is meant to be viewed in motion, walking around it. Berruti invites us to ask ourselves: which of these aspects most defines who we are?
Out of Your Own
This circular installation gathers works that explore a simple but powerful moment: a child discovering their own shadow. It’s a quiet, almost magical encounter. At first comes wonder: the shadow follows, imitates, seems to want to play. That gesture gives birth to a new awareness: are we ever truly alone? Some parts of us may seem other, yet never leave us. But there’s another revelation too: anything touched by light casts a shadow. To discover the shadow is to confront what’s hidden, what’s deep, sometimes even disturbing. Where there is light, there is darkness. Where there is good, there is evil. This duality is not a curse, but a truth that concerns us all. Accepting the shadow – in ourselves, in others, in the world – may be the first step toward true growth. Like the child who, by playing with their silhouette, begins to truly know themselves.
Nel nome del Padre
All these children have the same face but different hairstyles. Each one represents a conflict currently taking place somewhere in the world. They’re all looking in the same direction. But who is the figure who is avoiding looks and who everyone is staring at? Is it the world – so saturated with violence that it no longer reacts to daily atrocities? Maybe that’s how we see war now: the same face, the same fate, with only minor differences. The girl seems like the leader of a tired army, yet she refuses to give them any orders. There are 42 figures – just like the answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything,” according to Douglas Adams’s humorous sci-fi novels. It’s a magical formula no one understands. “I checked very thoroughly,” says the supercomputer Deep Thought, “and this is definitely the answer. To be honest, I think the problem is you never really knew what the question was.” And maybe, in this dark moment for humanity, it’s time we stop looking for answers – and start asking better questions.
La Giostra di Nina
With La Giostra di Nina (Nina’s Carousel), Berruti shows his instinct for taking us to a place that is both memory and future. A place where art becomes culture, and culture is made of individual stories – sometimes a garden in bloom, sometimes a suffocating cage. Once again, we find duality. Berruti uses sparrows instead of horses, as if to say: why even on carousels do we limit our imagination by sticking to reality? Why can’t we ride birds? In what may be his best-known work – exhibited in major museums – Berruti speaks of childhood without showing children at all. The viewer completes the piece. And if we look again, we might notice: the birds have flown away. They are free now – and they’ll return only when and if they choose. The short film inspired by La Giostra di Nina (Nina’s Carousel) features an original soundtrack composed by Ludovico Einaudi, a music box of dreams, freedom, and imagination.
Don’t Let Me Be Wrong
Busts in art history usually mark celebration – heroism, glory, family pride. But Berruti short-circuits that tradition. This massive bust of a girl doesn’t honor a victorious figure, but freezes the moment just before the catastrophe. She looks up, as if witnessing a storm on the horizon. It’s too late. There’s nothing left to do. Berruti captures that tragic instant, warning us that we are near a point of no return: if we refuse to trust science, climate disasters – whether floods or droughts – will soon devastate the world as we know it. Inside this bust, where we might wish to hide, an unreleased short film shows us the future. The soundtrack was composed by Daddy G – founder of the legendary band Massive Attack – together with his longtime producer Stew Jackson.
