6 new Automn Exhibitions in Bologna: From Mosaic to the Milky Way

From October 18th 2025 to January 18th 2026 the 9th Edition of the Biennial of Contemporary Mosaic takes place in Ravenna. For 10 days, also two Bolognese galleries – Galleria B4 and Galleria Studio Cenacchi – host exhibitions of this event. Six artists focussing on mosaic present a broadened concept of this ancient technique. In the Biblioteca Walter Bigiavi the public is invited to visit the embassy of the Milky Way. At the AF Gallery three artists reflect on the path they have taken and the temptation to deviate from it. Studio La Linea Verticale presents Mohammed El Hajoui who crosses the threshold between finite and infinite, and the Galleria Stefano Forni shows paintings by painter Carlo Mattioli.

Tre linguaggi musivi diversi – Galleria B4
Assonanze e Dissonanze Musive – Galleria Studio Cenacchi
Casa della Via Lattea – Biblioteca Walter Bigiavi
Direzione Intrapresa e Volontà di Resa – AF Gallery
Mohammed El Hajoui: Finito-Atba-Infinito – Studio La Linea Verticale
Carlo Mattioli Torna a Bologna – Galleria Stefano Forni

Tre linguaggi musivi diversi
Rossella Baccolini, Kina Bogdanova, Joanna Piszczek
21 – 30 October 2025

Galleria B4
Via Vinazzetti 4/b, Bologna
https://www.facebook.com/galleriaB4

“Tre linguaggi musivi diversi” (Three different languages in mosaic) unites three female artists from different generations and different backgrounds. Despite major differences in their artistic expression, they share a passion for mosaic technique. While Rosella Baccolini works with traditional materials like glass, marble and gold, Joana Pisczek utilises recycled plastic, whereas Kina Bogdanova assembles murrine, mirrored glass, Tiffany glass, shells and fabric. The results of the first two are mostly abstract reliefs. These are contrasted by the floral and zoomorphic sculptures of the third.

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Galleria Studio Cenacchi
Via Santo Stefano 63, Bologna
www.studiocenacchi.com

Also, the exhibition “Assonanze e Dissonanze Musive” (Assonances and Dissonances in Mosaics) combines three mosaic artists. Even though, they are closer together in age and origin, their forms of expression differ. Giovanna Galli’s mosaics are almost abstract, but more traditional by their material and execution. Giuliano Babini places rather traditional mosaics on animal bodies. On the contrary, Paolo Racagni’s works are mosaics in the broadest sense, since they include other materials besides mosaic elements.

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Biblioteca Walter Bigiavi
Via delle Belle Arti 33, Bologna
https://bigiavi.sba.unibo.it/agenda/the-house-of-the-milky-way

In their ongoing project, the “House of the Milky Way”, the artist duo Antonello Ghezzi and various groups from different countries imagine our galaxy as a single Nation. The current installation is the result of a workshop given by the artists to students of GIOCA (Masters Program of the Department of Management, University of Bologna). During two months, the students created an embassy for the presumed state, with flags, office cupboards and wall decoration. Additionally, there is a desk, where people can fill in a form, which could be stamped with the official seal of the Milky Way to get the citizenship of the galaxy.

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AF Gallery
Via dei Bersaglieri 5/e, Bologna
www.af-artecontemporanea.it

In the group exhibition “Direzione intrapresa e volontà di resa” (Direction taken and willingness to surrender) the curator Francesca Disconzi unites three artists of her generation: they are all born in 1996. All reflect in their own way on the uncertain situation of artists in an unstable world. On focus is the conflict between creative and material necessity. With La Bella Estate, Francesco Bendini alludes to the novel of the same name by Cesare Pavese. During a lonely summer in Turin, he recalls his harmonious childhood in the countryside. In his precarious situation, he longs for the sea and paints bright blue pictures on canvas using toilet cleaner. In his works, Francesco Ibba vacillates between abandoning the creative process and continuing it. His drawings remain unfinished. The plaster head cast in a rubbish bag escapes the viewer’s gaze due to the remaining blue skin. Nicola Bizzarri attempts to avoid material precariousness through material concreteness. He prints fabrics and folds them into flags according to regulations in order to question the ceremonies of power. In “Zahl, Zahl, Kopf” (German for tails, tails, heads in coin flipping), he alludes to randomness, but at the same time he creates an object of practical use: trousers from a fabric printed with coins.

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Studio La Linea Verticale
VIA DELL’ORO 4B, Bologna
www.studiolalineaverticale.it

Mohammed El Hajoui reflects in his art his double cultural influences. Grown up in Marocco and Italy, he feels a double cultural affiliation, which is his source of expression. The door, as transition point is a border from where we might see what is behind to discover. Thus, the threshold (in Arabic, atba) becomes the boundary between the known and the unknown. In consequence, doorlike motives are recurring in the exhibition. By their form and their ornamental decoration, they recall Islamic art. Through the opening, the viewer looks into the infinite behind it, which is frequently characterised by overlapping ornamental patterns, a mysterious space. But it is not only the opening space that appears infinite; the ornamental patterns could also continue indefinitely, if they were not limited by the size of the paper or the walls of the room.

At the same time, the artistic act, the precise cutting out of patterns from paper or the application of pigments as a kind of ephemeral carpet are meditative and performative. When applying the pigments to the floor in one room of the gallery, the artist repeated movements recalling Islamic prayer rituals. A planned final performance, in which visitors circle the vertical element of the installation to mix the green and white pigments, will evoke circling the Kaaba in Mecca.

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Galleria Stefano Forni
Piazza Cavour 2, Bologna
www.galleriastefanoforni.com

This retrospective of Carlo Mattioli shows a representative portrait of the artistic work of the Italian painter and also looks back on the gallery’s own history, as it dedicated its first solo exhibition to him back in 1996. Besides nudes and landscapes, solitary trees are main protagonists. This recurring motive is central in the artist’s oeuvre, a kind of self-portrait as his niece Anna Mattioli stated.

Although the multiple Biennale participant had a preference for oil painting, he did not limit himself to this technique. He painted with tempera and mixed materials. Additionally, he also worked with printmaking. In the exhibition, which covers the period from 1959 to 1983, there are some more or less classical landscapes. Moreover, Mattioli created monochromes with relief and inserted abstract elements like geometric colour fields.

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