Until May 10, 2026. VIVONO: ARTISTS & HIV–AIDS IN ITALY 1982 – 1996. Centro Pecci Prato. Tickets: €10, with reduced admission available for select groups. Open from Wednesday to Sunday from 10 am to 7 pm.
The VIVONO exhibition is a time capsule within Italian history. It is tender, timeless, and above all, profoundly human. The show hosted by the Centro Pecci in Prato captures the art, memory, and emotional landscape of a generation marked by the HIV–AIDS crisis in Italy between 1982 and 1996. The retrospective reconstructs what was once lost in translation through photography, poems, artworks, and personal testimony. The fragmented stories of love, fear, and resilience are pieced back together, redefining an era historically distorted by the media. Yet VIVONO is not simply just memorabilia; it compels us to confront the urgencies of today. The lingering struggles around healthcare, morality, and intimacy that continue to shape how we live and care are put on display at this groundbreaking show.
The exhibition is the outcome of a collective process. A collection of archival materials and personal recollections, preserved by the care of activists, friends, and families of the artists, forms the backbone of this project. Through a gallery of nine rooms, themes such as virus, stigma, care, isolation, and community are explored through artworks, testimonies, and archival works that display the emotional and social turmoil of the HIV-AIDS crisis.
Curated by Michele Bertolino, the exhibition unfolds almost like a simulation. Every room stands apart in its layout, artworks, architecture, and visual language, creating a visual rhythm that mirrors the lived experiences of each artist. While some rooms display intimate artistic memorabilia with photographs, personal objects, and letters, others feel like invitations into the artists’ homes and lives, complete with couches, ambient jazz, and screen projections of diary entries that draw the visitor into the most intimate corners of the artist’s life. Each room also presents a variety of media, showcasing works in different formats.
In one room, the silent film Pontormo and Punks at Santa Croce (1982) shows Florence in the 1980s, capturing the intensity of the time and the importance of desire within communities. Director Derek Jarman was one of the first public figures in Britain to reveal he was HIV-positive, a disclosure that shaped the course of his artistic career. In other rooms, fashion and the collective imagination of Maurizio Vetrugno come alive. A poem inscribed on the back of a Margiela dress hangs alongside the lyrics of an Iggy Pop song, reflecting on sex as a commodity embedded within the human psyche. Each work, while deeply personal to the artist, reflects the collective challenges and struggles faced by those living with HIV–AIDS.
Between 1992 and 1994, the Centro Pecci hosted numerous exhibitions that placed the fight against AIDS-related stigma and misinformation at their forefront. One of the museum’s permanent displays, Eccentricia, features Commemuro (1993), a series by Francesco Torrini created in memory of friends lost to AIDS, making VIVONO a vital space to display the visual experiences of the marginalized.
Now, the Centro Pecci presents a visually intimate exploration of love confronted by politics, revealing how personal and collective experiences have shaped the course of our history in healthcare, activism, and community life. VIVONO is not merely a dedication to those we’ve lost in the HIV AIDS crisis, but a commemoration of the life that endured and thrived during the era, despite it all. More information is available on Centro Pecci’s website.
(Bernice Nguyen)
