Fluorescent frogs in the weight room, oversized snails by the pool, and extra-large bears and bunnies welcoming members at the reception desk: more than 90 animals will take over Virgin Active Clubs in Milan during Milan Design Week. This “silent invasion” — vibrant, pop-inspired, and colorful — is brought to life by Cracking Art, an international art collective and pioneer in the use of regenerated plastic as a language of disruption and renewal.
The initiative involves three Virgin Active Clubs in Milan — Milano Cavour, Milano Piazzale Lodi, and Milano Bocconi — transforming them into dynamic exhibition spaces, open to interaction, imagination, and movement.
The project stems from a deep connection: both Virgin Active and Cracking Art speak to active communities, bound by physical, cultural, and social movement. While Virgin Active has always promoted an active and inclusive lifestyle, Cracking Art has embraced movement as an artistic philosophy: their works are made to be touched, moved, and experienced. The audience is not just a spectator, but part of the artwork itself. Art becomes an experience — just like the workouts offered by Virgin Active.
The artworks on display — including cats, dogs, bears, rabbits, snails, penguins, meerkats, and frogs — are made from regenerated plastic using an innovative industrial process that minimizes waste and environmental impact. The bright colors and oversized forms, hallmarks of Cracking Art’s style, blend with the contemporary architecture of the Clubs, creating a visual dialogue between design, wellness, and sustainability. Each installation sends a clear message: to create visual impact in order to spark reflection, engagement, and awareness.
The Gentle Invasion of Nature into the City
A colorful procession advances from nature into the city. Rabbits, swallows, and frogs emerge from the park and pour into urban spaces in a gentle invasion—a collective movement reminiscent of Pellizza da Volpedo’s historic march, Il Quarto Stato. But here, it is not people who set out on their journey; it is the animals—the Third Estate, the silent people of nature—reclaiming their place in the artificial world of the city.
This installation by Cracking Art transforms the urban landscape into a stage where biodiversity manifests with renewed energy. Swallows, symbols of freedom, soar through the sky, leading the way. Rabbits stride proudly across sidewalks and squares, while frogs conquer every space with their unpredictable leaps. It is a peaceful wave carrying a powerful message: nature is no longer on the margins but takes center stage.
Made from regenerated plastic, these animals represent the dialogue between sustainability and urban life. Spring Up is an invitation to see the world with fresh eyes and to welcome nature as an integral part of the city.
Art becomes movement. Nature becomes presence. The invasion has begun.
Milano – Cascina Merlata Spazio Vivo
via Pier Paolo Pasolini, 3
The new artwork by the Cracking Art collective comes to light with an installation at the Natural Science Museum of the Aosta Valley and in the town of Saint-Pierre (AO).
A total of 23 sculptures depicting the marmot will be showcased as part of Cracking Art’s latest project, created in collaboration with the Efisio Noussan Natural Science Museum of the Aosta Valley.
It is in this very museum that the Lyskamm Marmot is preserved. Retrieved from the glacier of the same name in the summer of 2022, it is the oldest mummified specimen ever found in Italy, dating back to the Neolithic period (approximately 4,500 years ago). Climate change, which is causing a rapid and progressive deterioration of the Alpine ecosystem, has brought to light the remains of an ancient and distant past.
The marmot specimen has been placed in a specially designed display case, ensuring its preservation for over 500 years. The internal environment is oxygen-free, with customizable and finely calibrated chemical-physical parameters to prevent deterioration. Its operation does not require electricity and is entirely eco-sustainable.
This extraordinary discovery has inspired a collaboration between the scientific museum and the artistic collective, celebrating the return to light of an animal that continues to characterize our mountains and is associated with numerous cultural and symbolic meanings.
Connected to the awakening of nature in springtime, the Groundhog Day tradition is well known as a prediction of winter’s duration. This makes the marmot a symbol of climate change, which is also disrupting the traditional knowledge once relied upon to guide human activities.
“Returned to the light”—this is how the museum welcomed the specimen to its collection. Its millennia-long slumber mirrors the long periods marmots naturally spend hibernating in their burrows, for up to six months at a time. The idea of continuous rebirth is thus deeply connected to the life of this charming rodent, which, when awake, serves as a true sentinel, keenly observing its surroundings.
“Depicting the marmot was one of our long-held dreams,” say the artists of the collective, “and dreaming is likely a key element during their long periods of sleep.”
“Celebrating life through play—the marmot’s favorite activity when awake—is a great source of joy for us, and we hope that our artworks will inspire visitors to explore this beautiful museum, which tells the story of landscapes so familiar to us.”
As is their tradition, the artists have created the sculptures in an oversized scale (125 cm in height) and in vivid colors, as their goal is not to produce naturalistic replicas but to craft a fantastic bestiary that represents our time—favoring forms and colors that evoke emotion and stimulate empathy.
Eight urban installations take center stage in Gorizia | Nova Gorica, European Capital of Culture 2025, until September 8.
The peaceful invasion of Cracking Art’s colorful animals has been inaugurated in Gorizia. The initiative is promoted by the Chamber of Commerce of Venezia Giulia for Nova Gorica and Gorizia, European Capital of Culture 2025, in collaboration with the Municipality of Gorizia.
“We aimed to animate the city’s visit in every sense,” commented Antonio Paoletti, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Venezia Giulia, “with the presence of oversized, colorful animals to create a contemporary fable that engages visitors of all ages through direct interaction with the artwork. The material used—regenerated and regenerable plastic—addresses themes of sustainability and the relationship between human beings and technological progress.”
The Cracking Art artistic group consists of Italian, Belgian, and French artists and was founded in Biella on December 1, 1993, exactly one month after the Maastricht Treaty came into force, establishing the European Community. With their works integrated into urban settings, the artists have created over 500 installations worldwide, promoting themes such as collaboration and inclusivity.
“Placed in various locations around the city, the installations aim to engage and make all visitors protagonists of this special occasion, emphasizing that culture belongs to everyone and should be accessible without borders,” highlight the artists of the Cracking Art group.
The installations guide visitors through the city’s hidden corners at a time when it is buzzing with cultural activities.
“A fable of colors and symbols, where each animal represents a message,” concludes Paoletti, “with an itinerary linked to a digital map: by scanning the QR Codes on the totems near the installations with a smartphone, visitors can access information about the artwork and its location (in Italian, English, Slovenian, and German), ensuring a complete interaction between place, artwork, and audience.”
DAV – Department of Visual Arts in Soresina (CR) Hosts “CRACKING ART LOVES HISTORY”
A monographic exhibition dedicated to the internationally acclaimed artistic collective, as part of the celebrations for their 30th anniversary.
Founded in the early 1990s (1993), Cracking Art has been committed from its inception to radically transforming the perception of art history through a strong social and environmental engagement, combined with a revolutionary use of plastic materials that highlight the increasingly close relationship between natural life and artificial reality.
Three key aspects define their approach:
In addition to iconic works that have defined Cracking Art over the decades, the exhibition will feature an exclusive new sculpture created specifically for this event. Handcrafted, it will depict a modernized version of the Ephesian Artemis (2nd century CE), a symbol of the goddess Artemis’s worship in Ephesus, where she was venerated as queen of nature and ruler of wild beasts.
The exhibition will also include three vibrant and immediately recognizable urban installations. Located between the DAV and Soresina’s most prominent squares, these majestic and playful sculptures will integrate into the city’s urban fabric for the duration of the event, spreading Cracking Art’s poetic sincerity—full of ideas, joy, strength, color, and determination.
CRACKING ART LOVES HISTORY
December 15, 2024 – January 26, 2025
DAV – Department of Visual Arts
Via Matteotti 2/4 – Soresina (CR)
OPENING
Sunday, December 15, at 5:30 PM
HOURS
FOR INFO AND VISITS:
Email: dav.soresina@gmail.com
Phone: +39 340 5419476
FREE ENTRY
The Fabbrica Eos gallery presents, in its space at Viale Pasubio 8/a, from November 28, 2024, to January 11, 2025, the solo exhibition by Cracking Art titled CAOSMO – The Memory of Matter.
The exhibition marks the 30th anniversary of Cracking Art’s activity, taking a journey back to the origins of its artistic path. In fact, the programmatic manifesto of the movement was first presented in the spaces of the Fabbrica Eos gallery in December 1993, with its exhibition activity beginning in 1994.
The exhibition will feature some of the iconic sculptures made of regenerated and regenerable plastic that have characterized over 500 installations created throughout these years, bringing the collective to all five continents of the planet.
However, rather than a celebration of the past, this exhibition aims to present the transition to a series of new works that place an even greater focus on the concept of regeneration.
The artworks in the “Caosmo” series, displayed in a gallery for the first time, are made from material derived from the shredding of sculptures used in previous installations. This emphasizes that plastic, as Roland Barthes once wrote, is less a substance and more the very idea of its infinite transformation.
Chaos here does not so much signify disorder as the infinite speed with which any form dissipates the moment it arises. It is a void, not a nothingness, but a virtual space containing all possible particles and evoking all possible forms—forms that emerge only to immediately vanish, lacking consistency or reference. (G. Deleuze / F. Guattari, What is Philosophy?, 1991)
Thus, the particles of the sculptures, bearing the memory of their origins, take on unpredictable new directions in an attempt to restore order and rebuild a new cosmos through art, which, through its irrational processes, keeps us profoundly human.
Returning to Fabbrica Eos represents, for Cracking Art, a return to the origins of its universe.
A silent presence of wolves, sculptures dressed in intense colors (austerus indeed). Enigmatic figures that evoke the lives and dreams of magnificence of those who, in the Roman era, built a sumptuous villa, the powerful remains of which we can admire today in the archaeological area known as the Grotte di Catullo.
The installation is part of Back to PIETRA&Co., a mosaic of works forming an exhibition route from Punta Grò to the Grotte di Catullo, which will be open until October. These works emerged from the encounter between the creativity of the artists and the poetry of Sirmione: contaminations of public spaces and everyday places that come into contact with the public in unexpected and surprising ways.
“Bringing art back to the public and the public back to art without losing intensity and the ability to experiment,” said Lillo Marciano, the creator of the event, to whom this presence is dedicated.
The exhibition is organized by the Consorzio Marmisti Bresciani in collaboration with the Municipality of Sirmione and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage – Regional Directorate of Museums of Lombardy.
“Ceramicrack – the regeneration of matter” is an exhibition dedicated to the encounter between the plastic art of Cracking Art and that of the master ceramists of Albisola Superiore on the occasion of the Maiolica Festival.
A city route of six installations starting from the ceramic school passing through the archaeological area of Alba Docilia, winding along the promenade to lead to the Manlio Trucco Museum where an exhibition will showcase the works created by the ceramists of Albisola Superiore in dialogue with Cracking Art sculptures.
The installations and the exhibition will be open for visitation until September 5th.
On SATURDAY, MAY 4th, at 5:30 PM at PALAZZO MANDAMENTALE in Cannobio, the inauguration of the Cracking Art MOVEMENT EXHIBITION will take place.
The exhibition project – curated by Marco Albertella, cultural director of the City of Cannobio, and Cracking Art – aims to celebrate the important milestone of the 30 YEARS SINCE THE FOUNDATION of the movement with an EXHIBITION-EVENT TITLED “CREO,” set up at PALAZZO PARASI, featuring some UNPUBLISHED WORKS, and a CITYWIDE EXHIBITION, “URBAN FABLES” showcasing the colorful oversized animals by Cracking Art hosted in some of the most emblematic and poetic places of Cannobio.
The “Creo” exhibition at Palazzo Parasi will then be open for visits UNTIL SUNDAY, JULY 14, 2024, on the following days and times:
The “Urban Fables” citywide exhibition, on the other hand, will be freely accessible throughout the streets of the city UNTIL SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2024.
