Pistoia, a city of art and profound cultural horizons, welcomes the new solo exhibition by artist Simone Del Sere, inviting the public on an aesthetic and emotional journey through crisis, loss, and recomposition. The opening is scheduled for Saturday, December 6, at 5:30 p.m. in the spaces of the Biblioteca San Giorgio, one of the symbolic places of cultural life in Pistoia.
Entitled “The Art of Making Peace: Aesthetic Codes of Crisis and Recomposition”, the exhibition that Del Sere dedicates to the city transforms Pistoia into a visual laboratory capable of questioning the present and giving it new possibilities of meaning. Curated by art historian Patrizia Gelli, the exhibition will be open until January 7, 2026 (free admission; Mondays 2–7 p.m., Tuesdays–Saturdays 9 a.m.–7 p.m.).
The Biblioteca San Giorgio as a symbolic space for contemporary art
Set up in the display cases and interior spaces of the municipal library, the exhibition establishes a direct dialogue with the city: the works look out over Pistoia and, at the same time, invite Pistoia to enter into their narrative.
The choice of San Giorgio, the beating heart of Pistoia’s cultural production, reinforces the value of art as a collective language, as an act of knowledge, and as shared research. Here, Del Sere’s work becomes an ethical tool, a visual interrogation, an opportunity for listening and inner renewal.
Further insight is provided by the critical contribution of Monsignor Timothy Verdon, Director of the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, who has been engaging with the artist’s work on the themes of migrants and contemporary conflicts for years.
“The Art of Making Peace” is an exhibition that affirms that peace is not a sudden event or a temporary suspension of crisis, but an active practice that requires time, commitment, and listening. The crisis, in its brutality, contains within itself the seed of recomposition: what is fragmented can find new forms of order, and what is in transit can generate new codes of coexistence. Art thus becomes an epistemological tool for understanding and overcoming the fractures of the present, offering visitors a possible horizon of hope.
Verdon recalls how, in the year of the Jubilee of Hope proclaimed by Pope Francis, sadly marked by painful conflicts, the artist brings the excluded back to the center of his work: migrants who cross the Mediterranean in search of a future, often encountering only death and silence. Del Sere chooses to represent them not in the perceived threat, but in their vulnerability, focusing on female figures and their tribal masks, charged with nobility, history, and mysterious dignity.
The critic then highlights the transition from the tragic experience of separation to that of connection: Del Sere‘s “meta-bridges” become architectures of possibility, joyful crossings, openings to new relationships. Finally, in the series Concordanze, geometry becomes poetic language and technology becomes an expressive tool, suggesting a hidden order that can recompose what appears fractured. For Verdon, the title “The Art of Making Peace” clarifies the ethical framework of the exhibition: learning to reconcile with oneself in order to then be peace in the world, contributing to the breaking down of barriers between individuals and communities. A form of inner discipline that, like all art, requires commitment, listening, and a deeply human gesture of responsibility.
An exhibition created for Pistoia that speaks to our times
Del Sere explores crisis as a fracture but also as an opportunity: what is broken can be put back together, what migrates can generate new forms of community, what is disoriented can find a new direction.
Art thus becomes a lens through which to view the present, and Pistoia—a city that has successfully combined tradition and innovation—provides the ideal setting for this journey.
The exhibition itinerary
The Crisis – Between city and gaze
The section dedicated to the Crisis takes shape in the windows overlooking Pistoia. Works such as #Justanumber and Pesci neri (Black Fish) recount the drama of migratory flows in the Mediterranean through a vigorous material language, dense layers of color, and broken shapes that evoke loss, dispossession, and dehumanization.
Masks – a recurring element in Del Sere’s work – emerge as revealing devices: symbols that restore faces and dignity to submerged stories.
Two suspended, lyrical figures also fit into this context: Mater Migrantes, an icon of resilience, and La sognatrice sulle acque (The Dreamer on the Waters), which introduces a contemplative, almost metaphysical dimension.
La Ricomposizione (The Recomposition) – Inside the library, inside order
Beyond the entrance, the exhibition evolves into the Ricomposizione section, set up in the interior rooms of San Giorgio.
Here, the language changes: the fracture gives way to a new visual order. In the series Metaponti and Concordanze, the extroverted canvases are transformed into “three-dimensional scores” that study connection and rhythm, geometries that do not impose rigor but generate relationships.
The journey culminates in the work Pace, understood as a sought-after and regained balance, a point of arrival that suggests individual and community responsibility.
Simone Del Sere – The Artist
Born in 1971, Simone Del Sere came to painting as an essential need after extensive experience in publishing, television, and graphic design.
Trained at the State Art Institute in Florence, he worked for over twenty years in illustration and visual communication, refining a language based on synthesis, the power of the sign, and geometric precision.
When he chose painting, Del Sere did not renounce his past but transformed it: the discipline of the designer combined with the irrepressible drive of artistic research, that “necessary madness” that guides his work today.
