ANDREA GALVANI

The exhibition is anchored by The Void Migrates to the Surface [Blue Morpho]—a powerful videosculptural installation that brings visitors into a deeper dimension of time. Galvani extends the brief lives of one rare and endangered butterfly species—from just a few weeks to 73 years, the global average human life expectancy. Using advanced super-slow motion technology capable of capturing up to 1 million frames per second, the artist dilates time with precision—stretching seconds into minutes and aligning the lifespan of butterflies with that of human beings. Reverberating throughout the entire architecture, Galvani’s audio installation Resurrection I reanimates melancholic, hauntingly beautiful birdsongs and calls from seven bird species that went extinct between 1907 and 1999. The exhibition is constituted by a state of absence more permanent than death.

Rising like a constellation, Study on Omega-Minus, Galvani’s neon sculpture, traces one of the most important discoveries in quantum physics from the last century. Like a luminous map reminiscent of sinuous vegetal forms, the work charts the first observance of the omega-minus particle—a revolution that shaped our understanding of the fundamental building blocks of matter and nature’s underlying symmetries. Using technology, simulacra of nature, Galvani builds a new cosmology. The Lost Garden of Heaven takes on a clear political, philosophical, and existential direction—life is an event that embodies time in a continuous natural flow, without perimeters.

Developed over three years, The Lost Garden of Heaven crystallizes Galvani’s extensive research and production between Mexico, Peru, and the United States with the collaboration of major institutions including the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics and Macaulay Library at Cornell University, McGuire Center for Lepidoptera & Biodiversity, and the American Museum of Natural History. It was made possible with the generous support of The Shifting Foundation, Los Angeles.

Artist Bio

Andrea Galvani (Italy, 1973) lives and works between New York and Mexico City. Adopting a cross-disciplinary approach that often draws upon scientific methodology, his conceptual research informs his use of photography, video, drawing, sculpture, sound, architectural installation, and performance.

Galvani has exhibited internationally, including at the Whitney Museum, New York; the 4th Moscow Biennial for Contemporary Art; the Mediations Biennial, Poznan, Poland; 9th Biennial of Contemporary Art of Nicaragua; Art in General, New York; Aperture Foundation, New York; The Calder Foundation, New York; Mart Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Trento; Macro Museum, Rome; GAMeC, Bergamo; De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam; Oslo Plads, Copenhagen, among others. His work is part of public and private collections in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa, including: the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Dallas Museum of Art; The Deutsche Bank Collection, London; Fundación La Caixa, Spain; Schloss Kummerow Museum of Contemporary Photography, Kummerow, Germany; Colección SOLO, Madrid; Aspen Contemporary Art Collection, New York; Castelvecchio Museum, Verona; the Mart Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto; the Library of Washington DC; MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome; MA*GA Museum of Contemporary Art, Gallarate; UBI—Banca Popolare di Bergamo; and Unicredit, Milan. He has been a visiting artist at New York University, and has completed several artist residencies in New York, including Location One International Artist Residency Program, the LMCC Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the MIA Artist Space Program/Columbia University School of the Arts.

In 2011, he received the New York Exposure Prize and was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. In 2016, the Mart Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto presented Galvani’s first mid-career retrospective in Europe. In 2017, the artist was selected to represent the Deutsche Bank Collection with a solo exhibition at Frieze New York. Andrea Galvani (Mousse Publishing), a comprehensive monograph of over 10 years of work and research, was published September 2018 and is distributed worldwide. In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Audemars Piguet prize. In 2020, the artist presented a monumental solo show and 4-month long durational performance at the Mattatoio Roma / MACRO Testaccio. In 2022, he was invited by the 23rd Triennale Milano to develop and present a site-specific installation for the International Exhibition, Unknown Unknowns. An Introduction to Mysteries, curated by Ersilia Vaudo Scarpetta. Galvani presented his first museum solo exhibition in Asia—The Void Migrates to the Surface, at Fotografiska Shanghai from September 2025 through January 2026.