Milan 20121
Italy
Curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Daniel Birnbaum, and Marta Papini.
The exhibition Fata Morgana: Memories of the Invisible transforms the Baroque interiors of Palazzo Morando into a museum of visions—an atlas of unseen forces, apparitions, and ecstatic revelations. Conceived and produced by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi for Palazzo Morando | Costume Moda Immagine, and curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Daniel Birnbaum, and Marta Papini, the show gathers more than two hundred works by seventy-eight historical and contemporary figures—from nineteenth-century mediums to modern mystics and artists propelled by trance, psychic automatism, and other states of altered perception.
Fata Morgana explores the intersections between art, mysticism, esotericism, spiritualism, and symbolic practices—revealing how investigations once deemed eccentric or marginal have continually reshaped the boundaries of art and consciousness.
Taking its title from the mythical enchantress of the Arthurian cycle (Morgan le Fay), the project also draws inspiration from André Breton’s 1940 poem Fata Morgana—written in Marseille shortly before his exile in the US—where apparitions and oracles dissolve the boundaries between the visible and the invisible.
Palazzo Morando, an eighteenth-century residence in the heart of Milan’s fashion district, now a museum dedicated to the city’s cultural memory, was once the home of Countess Lydia Caprara Morando Attendolo Bolognini (1876–1945). A patron and benefactor, yet deeply drawn to esoteric knowledge, the Countess assembled an extraordinary library devoted to alchemy, Theosophy, and spiritualism—today preserved at the Archivio Storico Civico and Biblioteca Trivulziana. The dual nature of the Countess—aristocratic and philanthropic as well as mystical and visionary—makes Palazzo Morando both the ideal setting and the conceptual heart of Fata Morgana, echoing the Countess’s dialogue with the invisible and her fascination with hidden worlds.
At its center, the exhibition presents, for the first time in Italy, a rare corpus of sixteen paintings by Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), whose mediumistic practice anticipated abstraction years before Vasily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. Surrounding her are works and documents by pioneers such as Annie Besant, Georgiana Houghton, Emma Kunz, Eusapia Palladino, Augustin Lesage, and Fleury-Joseph Crépin, along with modern and contemporary artists including Kenneth Anger, Kerstin Brätsch, André Breton, Guglielmo Castelli, Judy Chicago, Maya Deren, Chiara Fumai, Pierre Klossowski, Lee Miller, Louise Nevelson, Carol Rama, Man Ray, and Andra Ursuţa, among many others.
The exhibition unfolds across ten thematic chapters—Spirit Guides, Mediums and Mystics, The Automatic Message, Cosmic Gardens, Flesh Flowers, Spiritual Voices, The World Rescue Project, Primordial Images, Bodies Without Organs, and Simulacra—weaving together historical genealogies and contemporary reflections. From nineteenth-century spiritualist drawings to Surrealist experiments, feminist abstractions, and visionary films, each section becomes a portal into the hidden landscapes of the imagination, offering an encounter with the mysterious, the ecstatic, and the unknown.
Far from attempting to confirm the supernatural, Fata Morgana examines how, at different moments in history, practices considered “eccentric” or “heretical” have disrupted artistic and social conventions, questioning gender hierarchies, scientific authority, and the limits of rational thought. In an age marked by new forms of obsession and disinformation, the exhibition also reflects on the complex ties between technology, spirituality, and power.
Fata Morgana: Memories of the Invisible is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue published by Electa (Pesci Rossi series), edited by Massimiliano Gioni, Daniel Birnbaum, and Marta Papini, with a preface by Beatrice Trussardi and essays by Jennifer Higgie, Vivienne Roberts, Julia Voss, and the full reprint of Andre Breton’s poem Fata Morgana.
The Fondazione Nicola Trussardi extends its gratitude to the patrons of Il Cerchio and to Deltalight for its support in the production of the exhibition.
The Fondazione also warmly thanks all lenders and collaborators. Finally, it expresses its gratitude to all the artists—and spirits—near and far.
With works and documents by:
Hilma af Klint, Eileen Agar, Aloïse (Aloïse Corbaz), Giulia Andreani, Kenneth Anger, Antonin Artaud, Wilhelmine Assmann, Annie Besant, Hildegard von Bingen, Kerstin Brätsch, André Breton, Marguerite Burnat-Provins, Marian Spore Bush, Claude Cahun, Chiara Camoni, Milly Canavero, Guglielmo Castelli, Ferdinand Cheval, Judy Chicago, Fleury-Joseph Crépin, Maya Deren, Fernand Desmoulin, Marcel Duchamp, Germaine Dulac, Cecilia Edefalk, Max Ernst, Minnie Evans, Madame Favre, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, Chiara Fumai, Dominique Fung, Linda Gazzera, Madge Gill, Anna Hackel, Gertrude Honzatko-Mediz, Georgiana Houghton, Anna Mary Howitt Watts, Victor Hugo, Hector Hyppolite, Emma Jung, Corita Kent, Pierre Klossowski, Emma Kunz, Ethel Le Rossignol, Sheila Legge, Augustin Lesage, Lars Olof Loeld, Goshka Macuga, Diego Marcon, James Tilly Matthews, Henri Michaux, Lee Miller, Jacob Mohr, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Jill Mulleady, Nadja (Léona Delcourt), Louise Nevelson, Eusapia Palladino, Paulina Peavy, Stanisłava Popielska, Carol Rama, Man Ray, Victorien Sardou, Marianna Simnett, Hélène Smith (Catherine-Elise Müller), Kiki Smith, Lily Stockman, Rosemarie Trockel, Gustave Pierre Marie Le Goarant de Tromelin, Kaari Upson, Andra Ursuţa, Giuseppe Versino, Vanda Vieira-Schmidt, Günter Weseler, Johanna Natalie Wintsch, Adolf Wölfli, Anna Zemánková, Unica Zürn.
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 10am–7pm. Free admission
Press contacts: Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Press Office, Lara Facco—press@fondazionenicolatrussardi.com / T +39 349 252 9989
