an event by Salone del Mobile.Milano

in collaboration with
Comune di Milano | Cultura

production by Change Performing Arts
curated by Franco Laera

A project of rare intensity between art, light and sound, Robert Wilson’s Mother, with music by Arvo P.rt, at Museo della Piet. Rondanini in collaboration with Comune di Milano | Cultura, is the first installation of Salone del Mobile Milano 2025 which opens to the public and closes on the 18th May, offering the city the opportunity to visit beyond Design Week. In the year of Euroluce, the famous American artist signs a ‘total work’ dedicated to Michelangelo’s masterpiece, recognised, together with Leonardo’s Last Supper, as the most iconic work of art in Milan. Wilson, an absolute master in the creative use of light, gives life to an installation that measures itself against the power of the ‘unfinished’, in dramaturgical dialogue with Stabat Mater, a medieval prayer in the vocal and instrumental version by Estonian composer Arvo P.rt. Mother takes the form of music, light and images. The Stabat Mater is performed live – 6th-13th April − by Vox Clamantis ensemble, conducted by Jaan-Eick Tulve, and by La Risonanza, conducted by Fabio Bonizzoni.

“When I saw the unfinished Piet. of Michelangelo for the first time, I sat looking at it for over an hour. It was amazing just to be with it. It had a tremendous power , a kind of mystery. It was something that I wanted to look at for a long time . Being unfinished, it was like looking through an open door, a space that gives time to think and time to dream . I was very taken back to thinking that I would try to stage it , a masterpiece. It doesn’t need any staging. It just need s to be given a room with an open window for people to have their own thoughts and feelings which would be enhanced by the music of Arvo P.rt. P.rt and I share a common sense of time and space.”

– Robert Wilson