Temporali [Thunderstorms] is a lighting-artwork that increase its brightness whenever a lightning strikes somewhere in Italy.

Through a simple electronic mechanism, the artwork reveals to the viewer the connection between art and the primal energy of nature, reinforcing its role as a tool of mediation between humanity and the world.

“What matters most in art,” the artist states, “is the mysterious nature of the visual event, and Temporali speaks the enigmatic language of light and of the primordial forces that trigger its appearance.”

It is not a mere detection device, but a revelation one. The work goes beyond the Italian sky and evokes universal enigmas such as atmosphere, lightning, energy, and the entire celestial vault: art that holds the mystical sense of nature.

As often happens in Alberto Garutti’s practice, the caption is an integral part of the work, acting as a mechanism for its dissemination and activation. It becomes a device capable of establishing a dense network of correspondences between the viewer, the museum, and the sky.

First conceived in 2008 in Camogli for the Remotti Foundation, Temporali has been presented in multiple venues with ever-changing formal solutions, including MAXXI in Rome (2009), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin (2010), PAC – Contemporary Art Pavilion in Milan (2012), Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein (2013), Palazzo Cusani and Triennale di Milano (2015), and Palazzo Fortuny in Venice (2017). Since 2019, it has been permanently installed in Caorle at the Ca’ Corniani estate of Genagricola, and since 2023 on the roof of MAXXI in Rome, in the form of a large luminous sign integrated into the urban landscape.

The creation of the work is made possible thanks to the collaboration* with  Meteorage, a company that provides real-time lightning data collected by a network of sensors distributed across the Italian territory.

* From 2008 to 2019, the production of the work was made possible with the support of SIRF (Italian Lightning Detection System) of CESI (Italian Experimental Electrotechnical Center).