The egg, the skeleton and the rainbow: Luigi Serafini for the 10 years of the labyrinth of the Masone – Parma

Parma – It was 1981 when the visionary Codex Seraphinianus He saw the light in the form of a printed book. The brave publisher, Franco Maria Ricci, then had many dreams, including that of building a labyrinth. A place of the soul became reality in the labyrinth of the Masone in Fontanellato (Parma), which this spring celebrates its first ten years that returns to its origins, with an exhibition dedicated to the author of the author of the Codex And his fantasaguorical creations. From Serafini to Luigi. The man, the skeleton, the rainbow It is the title of the project, which has an added value that is not a little: an original path and a site-specific setting designed by the artist with the usual irony, based on his link with Franco Maria Ricci and with the labyrinth.

Placed from 29 March to 13 July 2025, the exhibition will return the entire career of Serafini after the only chronology he has never accepted, that is, the trip artition between pre-codex ERA, Codex ERA and Post-Codex era. From the famous Serafini to the most intimate Luigi, the artist will bring us to the root of the inspirations that his masterpiece has fed. So we will discover his first accomplished work that represents the parental home in Pedaso in the Marche region. The relationship with this place, of which Serafini loves to call himself ABORGENO, deeply marked his aesthetic and poetic imagination, documented, documented by fully non -published works and testimonies. The years of the architecture studies and a trip to America on the road belong to this phase that, as we will see, have deeply influenced its work.

Luigi Serafini, Zardo’s player, 2025 The courtesy Luigi Serafini

There will be enough space devoted to CodexExtraordinary encyclopedia of the absurd thanks to which Serafini is known all over the world: the repertoire of improbable and dreamy creatures that, as a real encyclopedia, treat the many areas of human knowledge, accompanied by texts written in an imaginary, asemic and therefore exploded alphabet. An apparently incredible project, which Ricci believed, and reason. “I wanted to bring the bookstore a kind of alien, an alarm, a book that everyone can be illiterate and therefore made potential readers. Everyone stands for the Codex Like children who have to learn to read. That magical and mythopoietic moment when fantasy is freed by imitating adults who read incomprehensible things, “the author remembered. From Italo Calvino to Roland Barthes, from Federico Fellini to Tim Burton, the free and imaginative spirit of Serafini would have overtonated the planetary of that last year, a planetary success of the last few years, a planetary of the last few years, a planetary of the last few years. Maddalena Casalis with the artist is conceived, enable you to in the tables of the CodexCombined with the sculptures that materialize its bizarre world in a three -dimensional version.

Architect, artist, scenograph, designer, Serafini certainly did not stop Codex. And yet, as he loves himself, everything was already there, in his crazy work earlier, in that ‘Another universe That Calvino in the first issue of the FMR magazine of Franco Maria Ricci thus summarized and offers the starting point for the title of the exhibition: “I would say that the images that unleash the most of the visionary Raptus of Serafini are three: the skeleton, the egg, the rainbow”. Sculptures, paintings and photos will tell the most recent years in the Masone Labyrinth, where the audience gets the chance for an exclusive experience: entering the house of the artist in Rome, the Domus Seraphiniana, total work and fantastic world that risks today.

Also read:
• Luigi Serafini and the code of fantasy
• From Serafini to Bernini: Travel to the fountain of the four rivers
• Ellapis by Luigi Serafini