A Scientific Encounter: The Complex explores the intersections between cultural and scientific heritage, focusing on the concept of the “complex”—a term coined by Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (Bologna, 1658–1730). A polymath—scientist, academician, diplomat, and general—Marsili founded Bologna’s Institute of Sciences and Liberal Arts, housed in Palazzo Poggi since 1711. The Institute’s early prestige is underscored by the 1714 incorporation of the local Accademia degli Inquieti, which transformed it into the Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna. This institution encompassed an educational centre, a scientific museum, and the Academy of Fine Arts.
Marsili’s vision of the “Complex” championed innovation through collaboration, debate, and experimentation between science and art.
By pairing works by internationally recognized artists with artifacts from the museum’s collections, the exhibition reimagines the historical relationship between art and science. It interrogates how historical collections—spanning anatomy, optics, chemistry, geography, nautical science, physics, and astronomy—can be reinterpreted through contemporary artistic engagement, while simultaneously expanding artistic practice through encounters with these objects.
The project seeks to reassess the historical entanglement (and disentanglement) of art and natural sciences; engage public interest in scientific museum collections by commissioning contemporary artists to highlight shared heritage; examine the agency of objects—how they shape human understanding, drawing from methodologies in science anthropology (e.g., Bruno Latour’s theories).
The exhibition is not didactic; contemporary artworks neither subordinate nor merely complement Museum of Palazzo Poggi’s collections. Instead, they intervene dynamically—dialoguing with or contrasting against displayed objects (fossils, scientific instruments, fortress models, anatomical waxes). The museum’s itinerary —featuring geography, nautical science, military architecture, physics, natural history, chemistry, human anatomy, obstetrics, and the Aldrovandi’s naturalistic collection— becomes a site of free dialogue, where artistic interventions provoke questions, challenge assumptions, and offer alternative visions.
A Scientific Encounter: The Complex reimagines historical scientific objects as catalysts for new ways of seeing and thinking and uses artistic imagination to uncover latent meanings and challenge linear/teleological narratives of scientific progress. It also acts also as a “rearview mirror” on the evolution of knowledge, reflecting shifts in material culture embracing a philosophical turn redefining object-subject relationships, revitalizing the role of material culture in natural sciences.
By engaging with these collections through an object-oriented lens, artists liberate their latent potential, recontextualizing them for contemporary discourse.
Exhibit curated by Gino Gianuizzi e Wolfgang Weileder.
FEATURED ARTISTS:
Aurelio Andrighetto (IT), Sergia Avveduti (IT), Irene Brown (GB), David Casini (IT), Silvia Cini (IT), Gianluca Codeghini (IT), CuoghiCorsello (IT), Garry Doherty (GB), Amy Dover (GB), Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva (MK/GB), Daniel Laskarin (CA), Janet Laurence (AU), Claudia Losi (IT), M+M (DE/LU), Dörte Meyer (DE), Maurizio Mercuri (IT), Stéphanie Nava (FR), Giancarlo Norese (IT), Marco Pace (IT), Jasmine Reif (DE/GB), Eva Sauer (IT/DE), Albrecht Schäfer (DE), Francesco Voltolina (IT), Wolfgang Weileder (DE/GB), Alberto Zanazzo (IT)
OPENING HOURS
June 10th -31st August 2025
Museum of Palazzo Poggi, via Zamboni 33, Bologna
Tuesday - Friday from 10am to 4pm
Saturday, Sunday, and holidays from 10am to 6pm
Closed: Mondays (except holidays) and August 15
TICKETS
The exhibition can be visited with the museum admission ticket (full price €7, reduced price €4, free for students and Unibo staff. For all reductions and free admissions, please consult the INFORMATION AND SERVICES section).
The exhibition is organized by the University Museum System | University of Bologna in collaboration with Newcastle University and extends the research initiative A Scientific Encounter: On Inter-Objectivity (2017, University of Montpellier Faculty of Medicine), a collaboration between Newcastle University, École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier, and the University of Montpellier.