There is something suspended in the installations of Massimo Bartolini. And with 100 Days, the deconsecrated church of San Carlo in Cremona becomes a place where light is not only an optical fact, but a material that builds imaginaries, signs, and voids. From September 20, 2025 to January 16, 2026, the Tuscan artist transforms the space into a threshold between festivity and silence, between intimacy and collectivity.

At the entrance, an unlit Sicilian luminaria rises like a sleeping architecture. It is a geometric skeleton that recalls the tradition of folk festivals, yet stripped of its sparkle. The promise of joy remains frozen, as if the time of celebration were suspended—already past or still to come.

At the back, behind the altar, the scene glows red. A neon gives new life to two phrases scratched into the walls of Cremona’s prison: words born in isolation that now free themselves within the sacred space. The light, absent in the luminaria, here becomes voice and presence—intimate and collective at the same time.

The project moves along a fragile boundary shaped by contrasts: transparency and secrecy, freedom and constraint, promise and disillusion. It’s a balance that reflects Bartolini’s wider practice, capable of weaving sculpture, installation, sound, and performance to create environments that are not merely observed, but traversed with all the senses.

From the Venice Biennale to Documenta, from international galleries to more intimate contexts, the artist continues to question perception and landscape. With 100 Days, he does so by restoring value to light—not as simple decoration, but as a tool for transformation and storytelling.

Courtesy of San Carlo Cremona and Massimo Bartolini. In collaboration with MASSIMODECARLO.