UNA and CASTIGLIONI Opens New Space With Valentina Furian and Alessandro Carano

: Published: 31 March 2025

UNA and CASTIGLIONI arre happy to announce the opening of a new venue in via Lazzaro Palazzi 3, Milan. For the inaugural exhibition UNA presents Valentina Furian (*1989, Venice) with the video Eclissi
and a series of drawings on transparent gelatin. Castiglioni presents Alessandro Carano (*1984, Gallarate, Varese) with a new series of paintings.

Starting from this shared opening, UNA and Castiglioni will alternate their programs within the space, fostering an ongoing dialogue between artistic practices and research. Valentina Furian lis a visual artist whose practice, rooted in moving images and time-based installations, explores the evolving relationship between human beings and the natural world. At the core of her research is an exploration of interspecific relationships, where human and non-human entities intersect, revealing the wild within the everyday.
In Eclissi, two petrified eyes stare at the viewer, motionless, never blinking. Like sentinels, they remain vigilant, in an eternal state of alert. Continuing her research on the relationship between night and day, the dynamics between predator and prey, and the dichotomy of darkness and light, the artist filmed the eyes of Canova’s Medusa, housed at the Museo Gipsoteca in Possagno, through a red optical filter. This hue, used in some night vision devices, helps the human eye adapt to sudden changes in brightness, shifting from deep darkness to blinding light and vice versa. For the occasion, the videos will be accompanied by a series of drawings on colored gelatin, executed by Valentina with her eyes closed. These somnambulistic traces outline fragmented equine and canine figures, dissolving until they become mere signs. Alessandro Carano's artistic practice is characterized by a deep interest in the very concept of painting, shifting the focus from pure technical skill to an exploration of what it means to paint and what painting itself is. Starting from the possibilities offered by different surfaces, Alessandro investigates a way of painting that does not necessarily require a brush but, through the composition of geometries and colors, finds the "painterly" form inherent in each material, bringing it to light through the attentive gaze of the observer.
One speaks of painting when looking at jute canvases painted in the classical sense, where the artist enhances shapes and highlights the unique qualities of the fabric through an interweaving of brushstrokes that follow its weave, revealing its hidden movements. Likewise, one speaks of painting when observing a composition of dots of color—individual plastic pixels, the Quercetti—that, from a simple children's puzzle, transform into plastic and pictorial surfaces, capable of engaging not only with Alessandro's other works but also with the very idea of painting.

Valentina Furian was part of the main program of ArtCity 2025 for Modern Art Museum of Bologna. In 2024 she had her first institutional exhibition at XNL Arte Piacenza; she participated at Biennale Gherdëina curated
by Lorenzo Giusti with Marta Papini; and she won the New York Prize with ISCP – International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York. She also participated in screenings at the Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, Venice, and in the frame of the exhibition The Underground Cinema at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin. In 2023 she was artist in residency at Proa21, PROA Foundation, Buenos Aires in collaboration with GAMeC, Bergamo and she was selected for the project Nuovo Forno del Pane with MAMbo Bologna. In the same year, her work was exhibited at Fondazione Stelline, Milan and at MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome. In
2022 she presented her work at the Rencontres Internationales Paris / Berlin festival. In 2021 she participated in the show Encounter the Imagination at Pearl Art Museum in Shanghai; she presented her video at Re-Creatures at Il Mattatoio, Rome, and in the exhibition Resisting the Trouble - Moving Images in Time of Crisis with VISIO and Lo Schermo dell’Arte, Firenze. In 2020 she presented her fi rst exhibition at UNA gallery, Piacenza. Over the years, she worked with institutional and experimental spaces such as ISCP (New York), Fundacion Proa (Buenos Aires), Pearl Art Museum (Shanghai), MAXXI (Roma), MAMbo (Bologna), MUSE (Trento), Fondazione Stelline (Milano), Case Chiuse, Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, Microclima – Venice, and many others.

Alessandro Carano studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. Among his solo exhibitions: in 2023, “Sette quadri con i chiodini Quercetti”, a project realized in collaboration with The Information Lab and curated by Filippo Percassi in Milan. In 2022, he exhibited alongside Bruno Munari at C53 in Milan and participated in “DEPTH OF FIELD”, a joint exhibition with Anne Fellner, organized in collaboration with Damien & The Love Guru (Brussels/Zurich). In 2020, he presented “A loro rischio e pericolo” at CASTIGLIONI in Milan and “Amigo Secreto” at escritorio técnico in São Paulo. In 2018, he took part in “Verlörung”, curated by Tenzing Barshee on the occasion of Art Berlin in Berlin, and exhibited “Poltrone d'Europa” at CASTIGLIONI in Milan. In 2017, he showcased “Donkey Man” at Mendes Wood DM in São Paulo. Among the group exhibitions he has participated in: in 2024, “Digital Barbara”, curated by Emmanuel Lambion at KXX, BN Projects in Brussels, and “Aeroporto”, curated by Thomaz Rosa and CASTIGLIONI in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2023, he was part of “La stanza dei fi gli” at CASTIGLIONI in Milan. In 2021, he exhibited at ARTISSIMA Art Fair in Turin and participated in 2019, he took part in “It might include or avoid feelings”, curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini for Hyphen Projects in Milan, as well as “Summer Show” at CASTIGLIONI in Milan and “Le Monde Ou Rien” at
Sgomento in Naples. In 2017, he was featured in “Dio C’è” at BFA MILANO in Milan, and in 2014, he participated in “Goodguys (Gran Riserva)” at Gasconade in Rome