This summer, Portrait Milano is hosting the Arcipelago Botanico and transforming its plaza into a large-scale outdoor artwork.
Can contemporary art make up for nature? *Arcipelago Botanico* is a bold presence that, like any artistic intervention in space, requires explanation.
And it is the artist Agostino Iacurci himself https://www.agostinoiacurci.com who tells this story during an elegant breakfast at the Portrait. His work is a narrative that delves into the memory of the place and truly stands out.
Portrait Milan: Hospitality and Art
With Arcipelago Botanico, Portrait Milano renews its commitment to promoting contemporary art by giving the city back a space open to cultural experimentation.
https://www.lungarnocollection.com/milan/portrait-milano, the 5-star luxury hotel in the Lungarno Collection, thus reaffirms its status as a destination dedicated to exceptional hospitality, thanks in part to its active involvement in the world of contemporary art.
Artist Agostino Iacurci’s*Botanical Archipelago* stems precisely from a dialogue with the history of the site, drawing on the memory of the greenery that once filled the courtyard. The space that now houses *Portrait en plein air* once featured palm trees, ornamental shrubs, and potted plants arranged as scenic and ceremonial elements around water fountains.
Botanical Archipelago: A Garden Like No Other
The cloister of the former Archiepiscopal Seminary, built in 1565, where Portrait is located, is transformed into a unique garden—a garden of dreams.
The installation draws inspiration from the long Italian tradition of gardens designed as places for gathering and contemplation. From monastic cloisters tothe Renaissancehortus, for centuries the garden has been a space where nature and human vision have harmoniously intertwined.
Arcipelago Botanico embraces this legacy and brings it into the present, encouraging the public to escape reality and immerse themselves in a fairy-tale world.
Botanical Archipelago: A Dialogue with the Architecture of Portrait Milano
The sculptures, functioning as totems, evoke a reimagined vegetation through ornaments that interact with the flora currently present within the space,
A composition in which greenery, architecture, and empty space coexist in harmony—a subtle interplay between living and imagined vegetation.
Eight monumental sculptures bring to life a fantastical botanical world made up of impossible trees, heraldic flowers, and organisms suspended between nature and artifice. The sculptures interact with the rigor of 16th-century architecture, the rhythm of the columns, and the existing vegetation.
The goal is to bring back to life the elegance and harmony of historic gardens with a completely personal and contemporary touch.
Iacurci’s plants are handcrafted, and their colors are bold: fuchsia pairs with green, purple meets orange, and brick blends with magenta.
The sculptures seem to keep growing; they interact with the light, the changing seasons, the passage of time—the span of a summer.
Who is the artist behind “Arcipelago Botanico” at Portrait Milano?
Agostino Iacurci was born in Foggia in 1986. He studied visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. His artistic practice encompasses painting, sculpture, drawing, and installation. Through an approach that is often collaborative and site-specific, Iacurci collects and reworks diverse materials to construct images and narratives that intertwine cultural history, personal memories, and literary references.
Iacurci has exhibited extensively in Italy and internationally, with solo and group exhibitions at institutions, museums, and galleries including: GAMeC and the Lorenzo Rota Botanical Garden in Bergamo, the KNMA in New Delhi, Garage Bentivoglio in Bologna, PDC Gallery in Los Angeles, Galerie Robert Grunenberg in Berlin, Ex Elettrofonica in Rome, the Italian Cultural Institute in Prague, the Civic Museums of Pesaro, Mattatoio in Rome, M77 Gallery in Milan, Celaya Brothers Gallery in Mexico City, Völklinger Hütte – European Center for Art and Industrial Culture in Germany, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, and Palazzo della Permanente in Milan.
Since 2009, he has been creating monumental installations in public spaces and designing projects for public and private institutions in various countries around the world. His major projects include: “Ornamento Radicale” in Mendrisio (2025), “Ensemble” for Casa Italia during the Paris Olympic Games (2024), the Côte-des-Neiges Mural Project in Montréal (2022), MURALU for the Ludwigshafen Museum in Germany (2021), “Life is Beautiful” in Las Vegas (2021), “Principal Place” in London (2020), the Yakutsk Biennale in Russia (2017), the Distrito Tec University in Monterrey, Mexico (2016), the Govind Puri metro station in New Delhi (2016), the Mario Penna Institute in Belo Horizonte, Brazil (2014), the Besançon University Campus in France (2014), the Rebibbia Correctional Facility in Rome (2012), and the Fubon Art Foundation in Taipei (2012).He has collaborated with international brands and publishers, including Apple, Adidas, Hermès, Herman Miller, *La Repubblica*, Penguin Random House, Starbucks, and *The New Yorker*.
Among the awards,
The Ermanno Casoli Prize (2024), the New York Prize sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Italian Academy.
