11 Maggio

Faraway (so close)

faraway (so close)

The installation has a bare, essential form, reminiscent of the industrial world.
It consists of an iron table on which two motorized pulleys and a chain are mounted.
A blade of paper runs over the pulleys, while several cylindrical supports are fixed to the chain to hold flowers upright.
The chain moves slowly and inexorably toward the paper blade, leading each flower, one after the other, to be decapitated—thus undergoing an inevitable homogenization.
At the entrance to the exhibition, each visitor is given a cut flower, and is invited to interact with the installation, thereby taking part in the creative-destructive process.
The work invites the viewer to observe the tension between order and disintegration, and to become part of a relentless yet aesthetically poetic dynamic, prompting reflection on control and inevitability, on both physical and emotional separation.

title

Faraway (so close)

Date

2021

medium

aluminum table, electric engines, paper blade, flowers

Size

cm 200X120X90

back

AdminWP

11 Maggio

#WideOpenYourself

#WideOpenYourself, conceived for La città intorno, the major urban regeneration project of the Adriano district in Milan (2017), aims to reclaim public space and reconnect with the history of places through the creation of pathways, observation points, and play stations.
The urban space was scattered with famous quotes from writers, philosophers, and artists. Additionally, in specific areas of the neighborhood, actual playgrounds were drawn directly onto the ground.
Each intervention used road paint and a photocatalytic finishing capable of neutralizing and transforming polluting and toxic agents into harmless substances.
An audio map was also created, allowing visitors to listen to the quotes read by actress Antonella Ruggiero.
The use of the hashtag will allow the project to continue evolving online, creating a bridge between the physical and virtual realms, between the artwork and its audience.
The “player-visitor” can document their interaction with the installation, but also suggest new routes, perspectives, and actions.
#WideOpenYourself functions as an open device that invites the viewer to explore an intimate dimension of the self through a collective and, at the same time, personal experience—encouraging participation in the making of a fluid and ever-changing work.

THE ROUTE

Some particularly meaningful locations were selected to form the stages of an ideal path for (re)discovering the neighborhood, its origins, play, and relationships:

– Piazza Costantino, the site of the former Crescenzago town hall, marking the beginning of the Adriano district, which extends northward along the street of the same name

– The abandoned area of the former Magneti-Marelli factory, at Via Adriano 60

– The water basin along Via Privata Vipiteno

– The former air-raid shelter, now incorporated into the commercial area

– The green area at the corner of Via Tremelloni and Via Tognazzi

title

#WideOpenYourself

Date

2017

medium

road painting, photocatalytic finishing

Size

Variable dimensions

audiomap

PIAZZA COSTANTINO

VIA ADRIANO 60

VIA PRIVATA VIPITENO

VIA TREMELLONI

credit: Antonella Ruggiero

via tremelloni angolo via tognazzi

gaming stations

back

AdminWP

11 Maggio

Encountering the stranger

encountering the stranger

Encountering the Stranger is the result of a performance that took place during the fourteenth edition of Cenaconme. [learn more] The inspirational quote chosen for the evening stated: “Public space is a place where you meet the other—if you want it to happen”. I chose to interpret this quotation by “collecting” the handshakes of strangers who decided to engage with me: each of them dipped their hand in paint and then left their print on the white glove I was wearing.
In return, I offered each participant a “small piece of myself”: a card containing a sentence about something I love and something I hate, along with the imprint of my lips. [see the artwork amo/detesto]
Encountering the Stranger thus explores the theme of otherness, the confrontation with the unknown, and the possibility of building relationships through symbolic gestures.
The project invites the viewer to reflect on what it means to be open to difference—both physically and emotionally.
This work encourages direct involvement, offering an experience that is not only observational but also transformative.
Each encounter becomes a unique and unrepeatable event, much like the very concept of the “stranger,” which opens a space for meeting and reflection.

title

Encountering the stranger

Date

13 luglio 2017

medium

Guanti di cotone, pittura atossica

Size

Dimensioni variabili

back

AdminWP

11 Maggio

Amo / Detesto

amo / detesto

Amo / Detesto consists of 110 cards signed with the imprint of my lips, each revealing something I love or something I hate.
During the performance Encountering the Stranger, each person who chose to engage with me received one of these unique pieces, thus transforming the work into a “distributed” artwork. [see detail Encountering the Stranger]

title

Amo / Detesto

Date

2017

medium

Ink and lipstick on paper

Size

Edition of 110 copies

14.8 x 10.5 cm each

back

AdminWP

11 Maggio

The revery alone will do

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

– Emily Dickinson –

A small patch of white clover lawn escapes from the viewer who gets too close.
It moves just far enough to remain present—perceived in its appearance, in its idea—but never fully accessible.
“The revery alone will do” offers a reflection on the relationship between object and image, and on the power of imagination when it is not mediated by the mind.
The object is necessary to create reality, but it is not sufficient.
It is the dream—understood as intuition—that is essential: it is the tool that allows us to cast a glimmer of light on that mysterious shadow zone at the boundary between what exists inside and outside of us.

title

Il sogno può bastare

Date

2015

medium

robot, metacrilato nero e trasparente, prato

Size

Cm 40x40x20

watch video

back

AdminWP

11 Maggio

As within so without – serie

as within so without – series

The aura is defined as a luminous emanation of energy, normally invisible to the naked eye.
Its existence, though not scientifically proven, has been acknowledged since the time of the ancient Egyptians and has often been depicted in art as a golden halo surrounding figures of particular charisma or holiness.

With this work, I intended to explore an unmanifest aspect of the reality around us, connected to the emotions and states of mind with which we approach it—and of which it, in turn, is an emanation.
The title of the series, As Within So Without, is borrowed from the second Hermetic principle of analogy or correspondence (“As above, so below – as below, so above. As within, so without – as without, so within. As in the great, so in the small”), and refers to the idea that for everything that exists, there is a correspondence at every level of consciousness.
This means that it is possible to recognize the great in the small and the small in the great, and that our external reality presents itself to us as a reflection of our inner world.

As within so without #1

These shots were first presented during my solo exhibition “Unmanifest Potential”, in July 2015.

Title

As within so without #1

Date

2015

Medium

Digital photos, magnetic acrylic frames

Size

cm 11,5×15 each

As within so without #2

This work was created for Cenaconme – Chapter 12: THE LIGHT ROOM “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”, which took place in Milan, in Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, on July 7th, 2016.

Title

As within so without #2

Date

2016

Medium

digital photos

Size

cm 11,5×15 each

As within so without #3

The series consists of 26 shots of as many photographs displayed on the Wall of Heroes at the House of Terror Museum in Budapest. The people portrayed are just a few of the thousands of victims of the resistance against the Soviet occupation of 1956 and the subsequent reprisals by the communist regime.

Title

As within so without #3

Date

2016

Medium

digital photos

Size

cm 11,5×15 each

As within so without #4

And I was thinking, swayed by the carriage,
dear friend, time takes, time gives.
We always run in one direction,
but what it is and what it means—who knows?
What remain are timeless dreams,
the impressions of a moment,
the lights in the dark of homes glimpsed from a train.
We are something that does not stay,
empty phrases in our heads,
and hearts full of symbols.

– Francesco Guccini –

Title

As within so without #4

Date

2015-2016

Medium

digital photos

Size

cm 11,5×15 each

As within so without #5

How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you — you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences — like rags and shreds of your very life.

– Katherine Mansfield –

Title

As within so without #5

Date

2015-2016

Medium

digital photos

Size

cm 11,5×15 each

As within so without #6

Non-places, as Marc Augé reminds us, are focused solely on the present and are highly representative of our era, which is marked by absolute precariousness, transience, passage, and a solitary individualism.
People move through non-places, but no one inhabits them.
And so, I search for what remains of that passage.

Title

As within so without #6

Date

2015-2016

Medium

digital photos

Size

cm 11,5×15 each

As within so without #7

I have gathered here some auras of ordinary people. Many were captured in their daily activities, sometimes unconsciously, or during special occasions, such as dinners, events, etc.; others chose to be portrayed during the opening period of my solo exhibition “Potenziale Immanifesto”, between July and October 2015.

Title

As within so without #7

Date

2015-2016

Medium

digital photos

Size

cm 11,5×15 each

As within so without #8

This work is the result of a collaboration with composer Umberto Bombardelli, who in 2016 asked me to create the cover for his monographic album *”Aura”*, released by EMA Vinci L\&C in 2018. I decided to photograph his handwritten sheet music in order to capture a different “essence” of it.

Title

As within so without #8

Date

2016

Medium

digital photos

Size

cm 11,5×15 each

back

AdminWP

8 Maggio

Mirrors – series

Hider or seeker

Title

Hider or seeker

Date

2022

Medium

Etched mirror, frame, gold pastel

Size

cm 15,5×9

Lonely me / Only me

Solitude and being alone are not the same.
Solitude is loneliness, a flight, a rift—even from yourself;
to be only means to be whole, untouched,
in quiet communion with the universe.

– Arianna Vanini –

Title

Lonely me / Only me

Date

2022

Medium

Etched mirror, charcoal

Size

cm 18×24

True / False

At the center of the mirror, two words, TRUE and FALSE, are preceded by small checkboxes, evoking the aesthetics of forms to be filled out. The person looking into the mirror is invited to reflect not only on their own image but also on their essence and how it is perceived by others. “True/False” creates a field of tension where surface and depth, truth and appearance are to be reconciled, suggesting that judgment is never completely clear or objective.

Date

2022

Medium

Etched mirror, white frame

Size

cm 23×32

Making the darkness conscious #2

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

– Carl Jung –

Title

Making the darkness conscious #2

Date

2022

Medium

Smoked gold etched mirror

Size

cm 40

Nowhere / Now here

[…] An atheist in the living room had written the phrase: “God is nowhere (nowhere).” One day his child began to read it, but “nowhere” was too long a word. So he split it into two: “God is now here” (‘now here’). […]

In the here and now, you will not find God, but something greater: you will find a divine essence.

– Osho –

Date

2022

Medium

Etched mirror, white frame

Size

cm 23×32

Making the darkness conscious #1

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

– Carl Jung –

Title

Making the darkness conscious #1

Date

2022

Medium

Smoked etched mirror

Size

cm 40

Remember who you wanted to be / Be who you want to be

Title

Remember who you wanted to be / Be who you want to be

Date

2022

Medium

Etched mirror, white frame

Size

cm 23×32

Here to be

Here to be invites a meeting with oneself, a pause of awareness in the present moment; it expresses the concept of unconditional existence, without the need to justify oneself through actions or achievements: we are already whole in our being, without having to do anything to deserve our presence in the world.

Title

Here to be

Date

2022

Medium

Etched mirror, white frame

Size

cm 15×20,5

Resistere o reesistere

To live with honor, one must yearn, be disturbed, fight, err, start over and discard everything, and again begin to struggle and lose eternally. Calmness is cowardice of the soul.

– Lev Tolstoj –

Title

Resistere o reesistere

Date

2022

Medium

Etched mirror, gold pastel

Size

cm 21×28

Just do nothing / It is impossible

JUST DO IT / NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE

(diptych)

Date

2022

Medium

Etched mirrors, white frames

Size

cm 46×32

pieno di sé o pieno di se

Pieno di sé o pieno di se / Pieno di se o pieno di sé invites us to reflect on the choice of approach each of us makes every time we look at the world — that is, between reality or fiction, truth or vanity.

Title

Pieno di sé o pieno di se

Date

2017

Medium

Mirror, gold frame, enamel paint

Size

pieno di sé o pieno di se / pieno di se o pieno di sé

(diptych)

Date

2015

Medium

Etched and enamelled mirrors, frames

Size

cm 18,2×25,3×1,5 each

back

AdminWP

9 Aprile

truth in your pocket

Truth in Your Pocket is an installation composed of hundreds of drawings made using the frottage technique. Each drawing represents the house key of a person who chose to enter into a relationship with the artist. The title, Truth in Your Pocket, refers to an anecdote about Albert Einstein and his view of truth:

“If there were no such thing as truth,” , said Einstein “these keys would be of little use to me—at most, I could fidget with them. But thank God, truth exists, and once we have known it, we cannot be blind to the fact that we know it. So we can recognize when we reach the truth, because truth, as I like to say, is what withstands the test of experience. And the truth of these keys, confirmed through countless experiences, is that they open the door to my house— I’d bet my life on it… Hoping my wife hasn’t changed the lock in the meantime.”

In this case, however, art serves to cast doubt on truth itself: none of the keys can open any door anymore, as the relationship between drawing and object is lost in the vagueness of the technique and becomes purely metaphorical. The work draws on the symbolic and intimate value that house keys hold for each person, and on our willingness—or lack thereof—to question our certainties and open ourselves to the other, the different, the unknown.

About the title:

“Truth in Your Pocket” is a poetic translation of the Italian expression “La verità in tasca”, which carries multiple meanings. On one hand, it suggests a personal and intimate relationship with truth — something small, portable, and always with you, like a house key. On the other, in Italian colloquial usage, it can ironically refer to someone who claims to always be right.
This duality reflects the core of the work: between possession and doubt, between symbolic truth and experiential uncertainty.

title

truth in your pocket

Date

2014-2015

medium

Wax pastel on paper

Size

Site-specific dimensions

back

AdminWP

9 Marzo

The Unmanifest Potential

the unmanifest potential

Before the lotus seed becomes a flower,
it must pass through the mud.
That mud is the world.

This edition of 100 was created on the occasion of the exhibition “Potenziale Immanifesto”, which took place in 2015 at Galleria Ciocca in Milan. [Learn more]

The lotus seed does not sprout in soil.
It is a hard core covered by a thick, seemingly impenetrable shell.
Simply being cast into water is not enough for it to open: it needs to be scarred.
This is why it takes root more easily in swampy water and mud—because the debris carried by the murky water strikes it again and again, piercing it with wound-like impacts.
The seed does not cry, does not complain. It does not die. It doesn’t lose courage or forget its goal.
It can remain in the mud without opening for ten weeks, keeping its vitality intact.
According to some legends, lotus seeds have remained dormant for thousands of years before blooming.
If the seed lands in clean water, it will need to be tossed again and again against rocks and stones, dragged by the current, before it inflicts on itself the wound that will allow it to germinate.
Once opened, the small seed draws all its nourishment from the water.
Even if the water is murky, it grows just as lush: filth cannot harm it, nothing diverts the lotus from its radiant nature.
It transforms every remnant into nourishment, becoming stronger and stronger, turning what is vile to others into a chance for true growth. [source: La storia del fior di loto]

title

The Unmanifest Potential (Potenziale Immanifesto)

Date

2015

medium

acetate boxes, lotus flower seeds, instructions

Size

Cm 5x5x5

Edition of 100

back

AdminWP

9 Febbraio

The numbers are poetic

the numbers are poetic

Mathematics is a form of poetry which transcends poetry in that it proclaims a truth; a form of reasoning which transcends reasoning in that it wants to bring about the truth it proclaims; a form of action, of ritual behavior, which does not find fulfillment in the act but must proclaim and elaborate a poetic form of truth.

– Bochner, The Role of Mathematics in the Rise of Science –

“Numbers Are Poetic” was created for the first edition of the project “A ciascuno il suo” by Galleria Ciocca Arte Contemporanea in Milan. [Learn more]

AdminWP