For this year’s iteration of the Venice Biennale, ZEGNA is supporting the Italian Pavilion as its main sponsor, presenting “Con te con tutto” by Chiara Camoni. Patronage has long been a defining value of the ZEGNA family, an ethos passed down through generations that continues to shape the brand’s cultural initiatives today. Curated by Cecilia Canziani, the exhibition invites viewers to reconsider how we relate to one another, to the natural world, and to the materials that shape our shared existence.
Chiara Camoni: Material as Language
Cecilia Canziani and Chiara Camoni.
Chiara Camoni, “Senza titolo (Credenza Armadio),” 2021, patinated wood with verdigris, mirror, paper, ceramic, plastic, 210 x 125 x 70 cm, courtesy of SpazioA.
Camoni’s practice has long been rooted in an intuitive, process-driven engagement with organic matter, time, and collective making. In “Con te con tutto,” these concerns are brought into focus through an immersive environment of two differently-lit rooms that highlights slowness, transformation, and dialogue across forms of life. Instead of exploring a singular narrative, the installation offers an evolving ecosystem of botanical, mineral, and handmade elements. Visitors are encouraged to move through the space as participants rather than observers, attuning themselves to subtle shifts in texture, light, and rhythm.
“We had the idea of a first room that suggestsed a forest of figures. These sculptures, some of which are called Sisters, some Columns, some Daimons, are standing and their posture immediately relates to the visitors.”
Canziani’s curatorial approach amplifies this sensibility, framing the pavilion as a living organism shaped by relationships—between artist and curator, material and maker, institution and landscape. Her long-standing collaboration with Camoni, spanning more than a decade, lends the project a sense of continuity and depth. Together, they construct a language that resists spectacle in favor of intimacy, foregrounding gestures of care, repetition, and shared labor.
Two Rooms, Two Worlds
Chiara Camoni, “Untitled (Small House),” 2019, copper-green patinated wood, ceramic, porcelain, natural sheep wool, goose feathers, paraffin, flowers, ointments, scented creams, 121 × 260 × 224 cm (variable dimensions). Courtesy of a private collection.
“We imagined the first room as a suspended space, which has a feeling of sacrality and rituality, with 24 sculptures,” Canziani said. “There’s a timeless feeling. And in the second room, we’ve opened all the windows and the door. There’s light coming in.” The space is further punctuated with wooden locks, like furniture, which the artist calls “cassette,” or “wooden sculptues resembling pieces of furniture.
While the first room is vertical, and slowly rising, the second room, is imagined as a world under construction. “I don’t think Chiara ever has a nostalgic tint in her work; this is a way to shake the world and give it a new possibility and appreciate things that are simply beautiful, too, because we desperately need beauty nowadays,” said Canziani.
Integral to the installation is ZEGNA’s enduring cultural vision, which situates art within a broader dialogue with nature and territory. Since its founding, the brand has cultivated a form of contemporary patronage that extends beyond sponsorship into sustained collaboration. This ethos finds a natural resonance in Camoni’s work. Elements sourced from Oasi Zegna, the vast natural territory developed by the Zegna family located in Trivero, enter the installation alongside references to the company’s textile heritage, including yarns from its historic wool mill. These materials are not presented as static symbols, but as active participants in an ongoing process of transformation, echoing the cycles of growth and decay inherent in both nature and craft.
Patronage Rooted in Landscape and Culture
Installation view of Chiara Camoni’s “Deaux Soeurs,” CAPC, Bordeaux, France, 2021, photo by Camilla Maria Santini.
The result is a pavilion embedded within a network of relationships that extend far beyond Venice. It gestures toward a mode of artistic production that is collective, situated, and ecologically attuned. In doing so, “Con te con tutto” reflects a broader shift within contemporary art toward practices that prioritize sustainability, interdependence, and the re-enchantment of the everyday.
ZEGNA’s role in supporting the Italian Pavilion underscores its long-standing commitment to fostering such dialogues. For over a century, the company has invested in the intersection of culture, craftsmanship, and environment, viewing these not as separate domains but as mutually reinforcing forces. Its collaboration with Camoni and Canziani—rooted in earlier initiatives such as ZegnArt and the work of Fondazione Zegna—finds a compelling culmination here, while also pointing toward future iterations.
In parallel with the Biennale, a solo exhibition by Camoni will unfold within Oasi Zegna itself, blurring the boundaries between exhibition space and lived landscape, inviting art patrons to engage with its themes across different contexts and temporalities.
What to Know
Chiara Camoni, “Chiamare a raduno. Sorelle. Falene e fiammelle. Ossa di leonesse, pietre e serpentesse.” Hangar Bicocca, Milan (IT) 2024, installation view. Photo by Agostino Osio.
Why it Matters: A poetic, process-driven pavilion that reflects a larger shift toward ecological thinking, collective making, and slower, material-led practices in contemporary art.
Dates: On view during the 61st Venice Biennale.
Venue: Italian Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Giardini.
Special Program: A parallel solo exhibition by Chiara Camoni at Oasi Zegna, extending the project into a lived natural landscape.
