During 2018 an important work by Luca Bertolo (Milan 1968) was added to the Mart’s Collections: La colonna infame (The Infamous Column). On this occasion the museum is devoting a room in the contemporary exhibition itinerary to the artist, presenting a selection from his most recent production.

With a successful twenty-year career behind him, Bertolo is the author of a personal research into contemporary themes: the pervasiveness of the media system, the questioning of modern culture, the instability of the present. Around these elements the artist builds a discourse on the destiny of painting and the image, combining different styles and techniques (hyperrealism, graffiti, oil, collage).

At the centre of the display is Striscione (Banner), a large “NO” painted in the Pointillist style. Structured around this axis are works from the “retro” cycle, full-blown stories of iconoclastic acts; Bandiere (Flags), inspired by one of the most visible symbols of modernity; Il buon futuro di una volta (The Good Future of the Past), a painting built around an idealised image, rendered anachronistic by spray painting; finally, the Terzo paesaggio (Third Landscape) series, which sees the artist intervening on works by anonymous authors.