On Monday 9 June 2025, at 11 a.m., the Inauguration event of the University of Trieste Art Gallery will take place in Via del Lazzaretto Vecchio 8.

Speakers:
Roberto Di Lenarda, Magnificent Rector
Massimo Degrassi, Director of the Department of Humanistic Studies
Francesca Fiorentini and Bruno Callegher, SmaTs, Sistema Museale di Ateneo
Ilaria Garofolo, Former Rector's Collaborator for the Building and Energy Area
Anna Del Bianco, Central Director of Culture and Sport Friuli Venezia Giulia Region

On the occasion of the University's Centenary (2024), the University of Trieste Museum System (smaTs) proposed a challenging initiative to the University Governance: to ideally connect to the 1953-1954 Art Exhibition in order to create a new Centenary Art Collection, involving collectors and contemporary artists.
Thus the Donors '24 project took shape. Letters arrived from artists and collectors expressing their willingness to donate one or more works to commemorate the centenary of the University. They were presented to the university community and the public in December 2023 and a selection of them was exhibited at the Centenary Exhibition “1924-2024”, at the Bastione Fiorito of the San Giusto Castle in Trieste, in the summer of 2024. In continuity with that initiative, and almost as a seal on the entire Centenary, the University of Trieste is now committed to enhancing the significant heritage of art donated to the University. To ensure that the generosity and high civic-mindedness of the artists and donors would continue to be alive and shared, a suitable space was found to preserve and exhibit a part of the donated works, so as to combine conservation and enjoyment: this is why the Art Gallery of the University of Trieste was created in the premises of the Library and the Department of Humanities, in the centre of the city of Trieste.

The Art Gallery will also host the works realised during the “Shine Bright Like A Diamond” artist residencies that, in 2024, involved all the Departments of the University of Trieste. The Art Gallery will be a stable place for reflection on the relationship and mutual contamination between the University, Art, Culture and Society, a place that will allow the visitor to appreciate the complexity of contemporary art, to identify the works that most excite and those that best narrate the travail, but also the opportunities deriving from the rapid and profound cultural changes of our times.