«I have crossed that windowsill many times

to move from one field of study to another.»

Ugo La Pietra

The La Rocca Foundation in Pescara, chaired by Ottorino La Rocca, presents the “At The Window” exhibition by Ugo La Pietra, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, scheduled from June 16 to October 3, 2026. The press preview will take place on June 13 at 5:00 p.m.; at 6:00 p.m. There will be a preview presentation of the catalog published by Allemandi, followed by the opening at 6:30 p.m.

One of the leading figures in the Italian art and design scene of the late 20th century, Ugo La Pietra, born in Bussi sul Tirino in the province of Pescara in 1938 — architect by training, as well as an artist, filmmaker, editor, musician, comic book artist, and educator. Since 1960, he has defined himself as a “researcher in the field of communication and the visual arts,” moving between art and design. His career, always resistant to overly rigid disciplinary boundaries, brings together theoretical thought and practice, drawing, painting, photography, installation, experimental film-making and reflections on living and the city. As Giacinto Di Pietrantonio writes in the catalog, La Pietra can be considered “a fully-fledged heir to a humanist tradition” due to his ability to bring art, architecture, design, music, and theory together within the same creative journey.

Conceived and created for the spaces within the Fondazione La Rocca,the exhibition explores one of the central themes of the artist’s work i.e. the relationship between interior and exterior, developing a complex critical theory focused on analyzing the relationship between the individual and the environment. The divide between private and public space is mediated by the “symbol-instrument” that inevitably separates them: the window.

In this journey, the window also serves as a bridge between disciplines, languages, and ways of living, reflecting the complexity of a research that has always challenged boundaries and which becomes the driving force behind the exhibition itself. In the works on display, an opening and a barrier, a frame and a passage, a perspectival and symbolic device, a form of knowledge and a zone of instability come together at once: a vantage point from which the world is observed, but also from which the distance between oneself and the outside world is measured, between the desire to go out and the need to stay, among home, the city, the landscape, and imagination.

Featuring approximately 70 works — including two-dimensional pieces such as acrylics on canvas, photomontages, and watercolors on paper, as well as three-dimensional works like ceramics and tapestries — and after a preamble, the exhibition is divided into six sections. It opens with “Living by the Window”, where the tension between interior and exterior is reversed into an intimate and paradoxical dimension: the interior tends to close in on itself and vision becomes mental, entrusted to the imagination rather than the actual view. It continues with “Behind the Window”, where the threshold takes on the dual nature of both a boundary and a possibility: what separates the inside from the outside also becomes what allows one to imagine a gap, a passage. Architecture/Nature, where the dialogue between architecture and the environment reveals one of the fundamental tensions in the artist’s work, connecting design, space, and life. In the sections “The Garden of Earthly Delights” and “The Landscape”, the scope expands into a broader dimension — one that encompasses nature, memory, and imagination — where the landscape emerges as an inner construction as well as a visual one. The exhibition concludes with “Outside the Window”: in the city, the gaze shifts to the urban space — the central focus of La Pietra’s research — where the relationship between the individual and the environment becomes an opportunity for critical reflection on contemporary living.

In La Pietra’s famous slogan “To live is to feel at home wherever you are,” the window represents a possibility of openness, a threshold that allows us to imagine a passage between different dimensions.

As Di Pietrantonio observes, La Pietra’s concept of the window is not one reduced to a mere tool of representation, but rather a set of devices aimed at viewing the world from multiple perspectives. It is in this sense that “At The Window” captures the nature of his work with particular clarity: a research that brings the visual arts, theory, the city, and imagination together, and that continues to explore the relationship between the individual and the environment, between private experience and the collective dimension.

A Public Program will follow the exhibition featuring in-depth discussions and guided tours for students.