Piotr Uklański: Faux Amis

Pinacoteca Agnelli presents “Faux Amis”, a new chapter of the “Beyond the Collection” programme, featuring a project by Polish artist Piotr Uklański. On view within the museum’s Scrigno and extending to the Museo di Anatomia Umana “Luigi Rolando” and the Museo della Frutta “Francesco Garnier Valletti”, the exhibition engages the Permanent Collection through a provocative play of affinities, echoes, and contrasts with Uklański’s own paintings, installations, and photographs. The title “Faux Amis” – meaning “false friends” – refers to words that sound similar but differ in meaning, mirroring how the artist juxtaposes his works with those of Bernardo Bellotto, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Antonio Canova, and Édouard Manet. Through what he calls a “cannibalistic” approach, Uklański feeds on centuries of art history to create layered dialogues between past and present.

Outside the museum, his intervention at the Museo di Anatomia Umana connects anatomical collections to works exploring corporeality and the symbolism of blood, while at the Museo della Frutta, wax replicas of fruit interact with Uklański’s still lifes—phantoms of paintings that now exist only in imagination. “Faux Amis” highlights the role of art historical study in contemporary practice and reveals unexpected perspectives on the museum’s masterpieces, reaffirming “Beyond the Collection” as a platform for reinterpreting heritage through the lens of the present.