Pietro Ruffo

Serlachius Manor

08.05.2027

—10.10.2027

Cosmogenesis

ExhibitionPietro Ruffo, leading Italian contemporary artist, invites viewers on a multi-layered wanderlust through human history and the cyclical nature of the universe.

Pietro Ruffo’s architectural training profoundly shapes his vision. He draws with ink, graphite, and ballpoint pen on paper, his medium of choice, which he then cuts with a scalpel and suspends using pins, creating intricate three‑dimensional surfaces, resembling to architectural models.

His artistic approach is a palimpsest – an accumulation of historical, spatial, and symbolic layers – and his work explores the intersections of art, cartography, geopolitical history, myths, nature and cosmology.

A series of bespoke installations have been created for Serlachius Manor, inviting the audience in an immersive experience through perspective and time. 

The result is a stratified work in which multiple readings and semantic layers investigate the boundaries of universality, particularly the history of humanity and its relationship and impact with nature.

Cosmogenesis refers to the origins and unfolding of the universe, connecting the intimate scale of human experience with the vast rhythms of the cosmos.

This exhibition presents the most extensive survey of Pietro Ruffo’s practice to date, across all the galleries at Serlachius Manor and the corridor to the permanent collection.

A series of bespoke installations have been created for Serlachius Manor, inviting the audience in an immersive experience through perspective and time. 

Pietro Ruffo’s exhibition is co-curated by Butterfly and David Chaumet of Butterfly Art News.

Dark-haired and dark-bearded slender man in blue shirt standing contemplating with his hand across his jaw.
Artist Pietro Ruffo. Photograph: Butterfly Art News

Pietro Ruffo

Pietro Ruffo (b. 1978) is an internationally recognised multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges art, history, science, architecture and fashion. He is based in Rome

studied Architecture at the Roma Tre University before receiving a research fellowship at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University, New York, in 2010.

He won the Cairo Prize in 2009 and the New York Prize in 2010.

Pietro Ruffo, Antropocene 77 – Rome under the sea, 2024, watercolour, ink and cutouts on paper laid on canvas.

In 2021, Pietro Ruffo made history by becoming the first contemporary artist to design a solo exhibition for the Vatican Apostolic Library, inaugurated by Pope Francis.

Among his achievements are a site-specific installation for the Quirinale Library, the 640 square meters Mural in Piazza Venezia in Rome, a major installation for the 60th Venice Biennale, a series of works commissioned for Expo Osaka in Japan, and the complete design of the Artotel in Rome.

Pietro Ruffo has also a long-standing collaboration with fashion designer Maria Grazia Chiuri and luxury fashion houses from Valentino, Christian Dior to Fendi.