Feedback. The Environments of Franco Vaccari

Museion presents Feedback. The Environments of Franco Vaccari, a major exhibition dedicated to one of the most distinctive figures in postwar and conceptual Italian art. Bringing together photographic works, videos, artist’s books, and archival material, the exhibition is the first comprehensive institutional exploration of Vaccari’s environments as the core of his artistic practice. Designed to celebrate what would have been the artist’s 90th birthday, the exhibition also marks the first major presentation of his work since his death in December 2025.

Although widely associated with photography, Franco Vaccari developed a radically expanded artistic practice that foregrounds the artwork as a social construct, formed through participation, context, and collective behavior, rather than as a fixed or autonomous object. Trained as a physicist, and only turning to art in the late 1960s, Vaccari introduced the concept of “Esposizione in tempo reale” (Real-time exhibition), in which the work unfolds over time and is shaped by the presence and actions of its audience. Today, Vaccari serves as a point of reference for younger generations of artists who recognize his early anticipation of the artwork as a collective process grounded in ordinary actions and shared behaviors. By critically engaging with the role of technology and exploiting its potential, he developed multimedia environments that activate everyday gestures, such as writing, recording, responding, and gathering; transforming audiences into co-participants whose cumulative presence and actions bring the work to life and continuously redefine it. This approach not only underpins the creative and generative process of Vaccari’s entire oeuvre, it also links him to Marcel Duchamp, who he dedicated both works and essays to, John Cage, the Situationists, and more recent perspectives that highlight the spectator as an active agent and producer of meaning.

Vaccari’s environments are the most complete expression of this practice. Often conceived as temporary structures, and built without conventional design intent, they transform exhibition spaces into experiences rather than displays. Meaning does not reside in form alone but emerges through interaction, chance, and collective presence. In his influential writings, including Fotografia e inconscio tecnologico (1979), Vaccari described this strategy as an “occultamento dell’opera”, a concealment of the work, in which lived experience becomes more important than the artwork itself.

The exhibition unfolds thematically through a sequence of environments and related works that address key concerns in Vaccari’s art, including traces of human presence, collective memory, and shared experience. The exhibition design by Fosbury Architecture supports this structure, creating continuity throughout the presentation while allowing each environment to function as an active situation rather than a static reconstruction. In doing so, these environments remain faithful to the artist’s original intentions while also speaking to contemporary audiences and contexts.

The initial sections of the exhibition explore darkness as a perceptual and psychological condition, inviting visitors into slowed-down, heightened modes of attention. Environments such as Scultura buia (1968) or Esposizione in tempo reale n. 20. Ambiente grigio multiuso – Scatola per sondare lo spazio vicino e lontano (1987) establish spaces in which a personal and intimate experience of darkness becomes inseparable from both a shared spatial condition, and an awareness of one’s own body and being. Subsequent environments focus on social interaction and traces of collective behavior in public space. Beginning with Esposizione in tempo reale n. 4. Lascia su queste pareti una traccia fotografica del tuo passaggio (1972) and its later development Photomatic d’Italia (1972–75), Vaccari focused on spontaneous encounters, participation, and the formation of temporary communities. These dynamics resurface in Esposizione in tempo reale n. 21. Bar Code, Code Bar (1993), presented at the XLV Venice Biennale, where a functioning bar became a space for informal exchange and public discussion, an experience echoed in the current exhibition.

The Museion Collection includes approximately twenty works by Franco Vaccari, most of them part of the Archivio di Nuova Scrittura, donated to the museum in 2020. The inclusion of early verbo-visual works in the exhibition underlines the continuity between Vaccari’s beginnings as a visual poet and his later environments, revealing language, traces, and presence as enduring concerns both in his art and in Museion’s heritage and research line, The Softest Hard.

Curated by Frida Carazzato and Luca Panaro
Exhibition design by Fosbury Architecture
Produced by Museion

Collateral program
Museion Ink: April 9, 5pm
In collaboration with Teatro Stabile Bolzano, free admission

Sound performance by Francesco Fonassi and Luisali Theisen: May 28, 8:30pm
Free admission

Story encounters: June 16, 3pm
In German and Italian, free admission

Guided tour with the curators: July 9, 7pm
With Frida Carazzato and Luca Panaro, in Italian, free admission