The Weightless Intensity of the Human Soul — Valerio Berruti’s “More than Kids” at Fondazione Ferrero
Last week, I immersed myself once again in the delicate, resonant world of Valerio Berruti, visiting his latest exhibition More than Kids at the Fondazione Ferrero in Alba. As with every encounter over the past fifteen years, it left me suspended — somewhere between memory and breath, thought and emotion.
More Than an Exhibition — A Breathing Space of Memory and Light
From the moment I stepped into the space, time seemed to slow. The silence wasn’t empty — it was charged, almost sacred. Berruti’s warm greys, chalk whites, faded ochres, and delicate sky blues don’t reflect light so much as hold it, softly, like cupped hands. His figures — children, families, solitary silhouettes — are not depictions; they are echoes, archetypes, wisps of universal experience.
One does not look at Berruti’s art. One listens.
Works That Touched the Deepest Chord
“La figlia di Isacco”
A monumental young girl, arms crossed, gaze lowered — nothing theatrical, yet quietly immense. Sacred and wounded, an icon of interiority.
“L’abbraccio più forte”
Two children embrace in a sculpture that holds closeness without collapse, affection without ownership — a stone-carved poem of mutual care.
“Kizuna” (Video installation)
A hand-drawn animation with a score by Ryuichi Sakamoto. “Kizuna” — bond — whispers of the threads that hold us even as we drift.
“Aurora”
A hymn to beginnings. The child figure glows like first light — the dawn of emotional consciousness.
“Nel Silenzio (In the Silence)”
A bas-relief of three girls sleeping on a cracked, sun-scorched earth: serenity overlaying urgency — a lullaby and a lament for a changing climate.
.jpg "Nel Silenzio (In the Silence)")
The Langhe Series
Eighteen frescoes of the artist’s home landscapes. They feel like open windows — meditative, generous, inviting the viewer to complete them.
“Endless Love”
A series of rice-paper drawings: two siblings in an eternal embrace. No drama — just the soft gravity of love that neither begins nor ends.
The Artistic Voice of Valerio Berruti: From Fresco to Spirit
Berruti’s language is grounded in fresco — a dialogue with Romanesque tradition — yet he does not repeat history; he redeems it. Space and silence have widened: not emptiness, but charged presence. Even the figures carry inner architecture — rooms in the eyes, vaults in a shoulder’s tilt.
.jpg "Vocazione (Vocation)")
The Man Who Draws to Remember
From public conversations and interviews, Berruti appears as essential as his lines — thoughtful, rooted, intentional. Living and working in a restored, deconsecrated church in Alba, he seems less interested in spectacle than in quiet persistence. He doesn’t provoke; he invites. And in that invitation, tenderness returns as a central artistic act.
Leaving with Gratitude, Returning with Thought
Stepping back into the street, the world felt louder, more hurried — yet I carried the residue of warmth and stillness. More than Kids is a breathing archive of what remains unsaid in human connection: a reminder that in an era of accelerated forgetting, slowness can be remembrance, fragility can be truth, and tenderness can be courage.
This is not just art. It is soul work.
FAQ
Who is Valerio Berruti?
An Italian artist from Alba known for fresco-based minimal figuration that explores tenderness, memory, and the architecture of inner life.
Why is “More than Kids” important?
It consolidates Berruti’s long investigation of collective tenderness, offering a contemplative counterpoint to our accelerated present.
1 comment:
Very interesting article. Love it.
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