Beverly Pepper | Space Outside

From October 16, 2025 to January 24, 2026, the two CUBO venues in Bologna (Porta Europa and Torre Unipol) host the exhibition Space Outside, featuring works by artist Beverly Pepper.

Pepper (1922–2020) was one of the leading figures of contemporary sculpture. Her artistic research spanned more than half a century, evolving from the still modernist, modular, and reflective works of the 1960s to imposing environmental-scale interventions. Through her work, she redefined the relationship between art, landscape, and community and renewed the very concept of the monument. Born in Brooklyn and trained in painting and design, she chose Italy as her second home, weaving together American sensibilities and classical European roots.

The exhibition, curated by Ilaria Bignotti and Marco Tonelli in collaboration with Fondazione Progetti Beverly Pepper​, offers a journey into the artist’s iconic and linguistic universe through sculptures, drawings, watercolors, sketchbooks, and archival materials, tracing the genesis of an artistic vision in which each form is conceived as a point of encounter between body and landscape, matter and light, past and present: places where everyone can rediscover a sense of belonging and participation. At the core of the exhibition are two works from the Unipol Group Art Collection – Virgo Rectangle Twist (1967) and Prisms I (1967–1968) – which mark a decisive moment in the artist’s research, when sculpture ceases to be a mere object to contemplate. Their mirrored surfaces reflect and incorporate the landscape and the viewer, anticipating the notion of Connective Art: art as a realm of connection, permeated by a subtle energy that envelops and unites the viewer, the artwork, and their surroundings.

At Porta Europa, the watercolors for Spazio Teatro Celle and Cromlech Glen bear witness to the artist’s drive toward environmental sculpture conceived in collaboration with nature; Diagonal Kappa and the photographs portraying Beverly Pepper at work and in front of the piece Sulla Senior recount the evolution of her sculpture, from geometric rigor to organic fluidity.

At Torre Unipol, the drawings of the celebrated Columns evoke the encounter between archaic verticality and the modernity of iron; the watercolors for Spazio Teatro Celle and the maquette of Amphisculpture for L'Aquila tell the story of the fusion of landscape, sculpture, and architecture: not only monumental works, but places of social interaction, safe spaces in which to rediscover oneself, others, and a shared identity.