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From April 3 to 28, 2025, the Roman Forum Hall of the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana hosts “Art Crimes,” a visionary journey between Renaissance and Pop Surrealism signed by Angelo Accardi.
What happens when Pop Surrealism breaks into the sacred places of Renaissance culture? The answer is “Art Crimes” the new site-specific installation by Angelo Accardi, on display from April 3 to 28 inside the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
An exhibition that, like a well-orchestrated art theft, plunders learned references and visual quotations to return them to the public through a contemporary, irreverent and deeply conceptual filter.
A Dialogue with History, in the House of Raphael and Caravaggio
Founded in 1607, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana is one of Europe's most prestigious cultural institutions, the custodian of Raphael's Preparatory Cartoon of the School of Athens, Leonardo's Atlantic Codex and Caravaggio's famous Basket of Fruit.
It is precisely in this art-historical context that Accardi places his intervention, transforming the Roman Forum Hall-the same one that in 2019 hosted Marina Abramovic's Ecstasy-into a stage for a bold reflection on art and its evolution.
“Art Crimes": when stealing is a creative act
Inspired by Picasso's famous aphorism-“The good artist copies, the great artist steals”-Accardi constructs an entirely new “School of Athens”, populated not only by ancient philosophers, but also by Duchamp, Dali, Warhol, Bacon, Cattelan, and Picasso. The artist stages a contemporary pantheon in which high culture meets pop culture, and theft becomes a metaphor for the creative act.
“Each work is born from another,” explains curator Nino Florenzano, defining the exhibition as a ”visual investigation of intellectual theft”. A path that reflects on the blurred boundary between inspiration and appropriation, citation and reinvention.
And among the works, there is no shortage of surreal incursions such as Socrates in dialogue with Artificial Intelligence, while Inspector Clouseau investigates impossible-to-solve crimes: those of creative genius.
Who is Angelo Accardi
Born in 1964, Angelo Accardi is one of the most internationally recognized Italian artists in the field of Pop Surrealism. After making his debut in the 1990s with research on new figuration, he became famous for his Misplaced series, where the ostrich - a symbol of an undefined collective fear - becomes the protagonist of ironic and disorienting scenes.
Accardi has participated in numerous international events, including the Venice Biennale. His work “Violet” was chosen for the cover of the Atlas of Contemporary Art 2024.
