President of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region

Friuli Venezia Giulia is a region that, by its very nature, has always engaged in dialogue with the world. In this land, where diverse cultures have met for centuries, the very concept of “border” cannot be interpreted through rigid geographical or historical frameworks. It is, rather, a flexible line, capable of transforming into creative energy, openness, and vision.

It is in this spirit that we wholeheartedly welcome the exhibition Confini da Gauguin a Hopper. Canto con variazioni, a high-profile project that ranks among the most significant cultural initiatives in our territory. Its presence at Villa Manin, a symbolic site of our identity and our capacity to host international-level events, underscores the Region’s tangible commitment to supporting an ambitious cultural program, one that enhances our heritage while offering a platform for new interpretations of the present.

Through the works of the great masters of modern art, this exhibition invites us to reflect on change, perception, and inner life. Here, art becomes a universal language capable of connecting eras, experiences, and peoples. It reminds us that every border, when viewed with fresh eyes, can become fertile ground for mutual understanding.

I wish to thank the curator and organizers, as well as the museum institutions and collectors who, with generosity, have made it possible to bring timeless masterpieces to a prestigious venue such as the Esedra di Levante, now restored to the public in all its renewed functionality. This exhibition is an opportunity to reaffirm that culture is one of the most powerful tools we have to imagine the future. And it is precisely in our shared capacity to imagine that Friuli Venezia Giulia continues to chart new paths.

Massimiliano Fedriga
President of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region

Vice President and Regional Minister for Culture and Sport of Friuli Venezia Giulia

The Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, a land of borders, supports a new frontier culture.

Consequently, it strongly endorsed this exhibition, Confini da Gauguin a Hopper. Canto con variazioni, which highlights thematic continuities between works created even decades apart and animated by different artistic visions, from the Romanticism of J.M.W. Turner to Paul Gauguin’s lyrical Impressionism, from Claude Monet’s open spaces to the atmospheres of Edward Hopper, while also interpreting the theme of the border in a wholly original way.

Our aim is to promote a new perspective on the concept of the border: no longer understood as a limit or end, but as a place of encounter and exchange, an opportunity for knowledge and friendship between peoples, with respect for diverse cultural and historical identities.

Yet the border is not only geographical: frontier culture also explores the boundaries, sometimes clear, sometimes blurred, between reality and fantasy, between memory and the imagination of memory, between past and future, between heights and depths. The exhibition immerses visitors in this multiplicity of dimensions, exploring how works of art, through different languages and sensitivities, delineate spaces of passage and transformation. Every limit becomes an opportunity to discover new inner and outer horizons or to experience new cultural encounters.

The exhibition and its installation at Villa Manin therefore represent not only an artistic journey but also a symbol of this vision, where the border becomes a bridge between cultures, eras, and dimensions. Such an ambitious project was made possible thanks to the expert direction of ERPAC and Linea d’Ombra, as well as the collaboration of the world’s most important museum and private collections, which allowed the Esedra di Levante at Villa Manin to host one of the most prestigious modern art collections at an international level. These significant loans were made possible following the extensive restoration and adaptation of the Esedra undertaken by the Region.

Today, the grand architectural wing of Villa Manin is no longer merely a scenic element, but an exhibition space capable of guaranteeing the highest levels of security and conservation, and able, in the future as well, to host exhibitions featuring the greatest masterpieces.

Mario Anzil
Vice President and Regional Minister for Culture and Sport of Friuli Venezia Giulia

Director General of ERPAC FVG

It is with great pride that ERPAC FVG – Regional Agency for the Cultural Heritage of Friuli Venezia Giulia – presents the exhibition Confini da Gauguin a Hopper. Canto con variazioni in the Esedra di Levante at Villa Manin, one of the flagship cultural events of the “GO! 2025. Nova Gorica – Gorizia European Capital of Culture” program. This exhibition is much more than a prestigious artistic event: it is a profound and poetic contribution to the reflection on this year’s central theme of the European Capital of Culture, the border, understood not only as separation but as a possibility for encounter, exploration, and vision.

Organized by Linea d’ombra, with the passionate curatorship of Marco Goldin, to whom we extend our sincere thanks, the exhibition develops a powerful and complex narrative through images: that of the border in the thought and work of the greatest masters of painting between the 19th and 20th centuries. Monet, Hopper, Van Gogh, Friedrich, Munch, Gauguin, Cézanne, Turner—these are just some of the artists featured in this journey, structured in several sections and a prologue, weaving together the external landscape and the inner world, the natural horizon and the horizon of the spirit.

With one hundred paintings and a rare selection of Japanese woodcuts, Confini invites visitors to cross physical and symbolic thresholds, following the journeys of the soul and of painting. It is a universal narrative that becomes both intimate and collective, beginning with the human face, a place of identity, and extending to the room, the mountain, the sea, the sky, and the imagination of elsewhere. Each work on display becomes a part in the great mosaic of our time and identity, in a continuous tension between closeness and distance, between rootedness and new perspectives.

On behalf of ERPAC FVG, I wish to thank all the lenders, public institutions, and collectors who have generously made this extraordinary project possible, contributing priceless works to the realization of an exhibition that will move and inspire reflection. Villa Manin, a crossroads of history, art, and culture, once again proves to be the ideal venue for broad and courageous visions. May this exhibition be, for all, citizens, visitors, and scholars, an opportunity to rediscover, through art, the profound meaning of what separates us and, at the same time, unites us.

Lydia Alessio – Vernì
Director General
ERPAC FVG – Regional Agency for the Cultural Heritage of Friuli Venezia Giulia