Imago Mundi is the collection of works commissioned and collected by Luciano Benetton on his travels around the world, involving, on a voluntary and non-profit basis, established and emerging artists from many different countries. Each of them has created a work whose only restriction is its 10x12 cm format, contributing to the creation of a remarkable artistic geography.
The collection, under the auspices of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche (established upon the wishes of the Benetton family to support and raise awareness of the wealth of landscape, cultural and artistic heritage), has no commercial ambitions, but aims to unite the diversities of our world in the name of common artistic experience. The goal is to catalogue works, inspirations and ideas, in order to pass down to future generations the widest possible mapping of the situation of human cultures at the start of the third millennium.
The social ambition of Imago Mundi is to promote a knowledge and awareness of art and, through this art, of the world. The numerous collections will be taken on a tour without frontiers to present them to the widest possible number of people, together through this web platform, catalogues and exhibitions in collaboration with private institutions, international organizations and public museums.
The increasingly global Imago Mundi project is further evolving and will involve 80 countries by the end of 2015 for a total of over 10,000 artworks.
The collection is currently on display in The Cooper Union Library's atrium and searchable in the Library's online catalog, Bobcat.
