Exhibitions
The assembled memory
What can fragments tell us about the present? How can we reconstruct new narratives from the remnants of the past? These questions form the basis of Performing PAC. These Fragments I Have Shored Against My Ruins , the new exhibition at PAC – Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea in Milan, which uses collage, assemblage, and installation as tools to reflect on memory, history, and contemporary creative processes.
Curated by Silvia Bignami, Iolanda Ratti, and Diego Sileo, the exhibition will be on view from July 3 to September 13, 2026, and is part of a project that, edition after edition, revisits major exhibitions held at the PAC (Centro de Arte para la Cultura) to reinterpret them from a contemporary perspective. This time, the starting point is the historic exhibition Kurt Schwitters. Collages, dipints e sculture 1914-1947 , organized in 2001 by Karin Orchard in collaboration with Luigi Sansone, now reconstructed using documents, photographs, and archival materials.
PERFORMING PAC. These fragments I have shored against my ruin, PAC Milano 2026. Photo Nico Covre.
More than an exercise in historical reconstruction, Performing PAC proposes a dialogue between eras. The figure of Kurt Schwitters, one of the great innovators of 20th-century art, serves as a central point for reflecting on art's capacity to transform waste, everyday objects, and discarded materials into new forms of knowledge and aesthetic experience. His practice, based on the accumulation, layering, and reuse of elements, continues to influence numerous contemporary artists.
The exhibition's title comes from the final lines of T.S. Eliot's * The Waste Land* (1922): "These fragments I have shored against my ruins ." This quote establishes a suggestive parallel between the British poet and Schwitters, both committed to reconstructing meaning from a fragmented reality. Faced with the crisis of modernity, both Eliot's poetry and Schwitters' compositions transform cultural remnants into material for imagining new possibilities.
PERFORMING PAC. These fragments I have shored against my ruin, PAC Milano 2026. Photo Nico Covre.
Following this same logic of accumulation and transformation, the PAC has invited Jacopo Benassi, John Bock, Gabriella Ciancimino, Roberto Cuoghi, Thomas Hirschhorn, Lucia Marcucci, and Mika Rottenberg—artists who, from very diverse perspectives, engage with the legacy of the German creator. Their installations, sculptures, photographs, videos, and assemblages expand the idea of collage beyond the two-dimensional surface, transforming it into a method of thinking capable of connecting memory, politics, identity, and visual culture.
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