Curated by Lóránd Hegyi

After the success of the first exhibition of the series MY30YEARS. Coherency in Diversity – conceived by international critic Lóránd Hegyi, paying homage to gallery owner Annamaria Maggi’s 30-year career – Galleria Fumagalli continues with the second exhibition: Sistema – Dematerializzazione – Testo which jointly presents the works of Enrico Castellani, Maurizio Nannucci and Peter Wuethrich.
The 8 exhibitions of the series involve the works of 12 artists – established masters and younger artists – followed or represented by Galleria Fumagalli in order to outline some recurring aesthetic and conceptual orientations. For each exhibition the critic Lóránd Hegyi has identified 3 artists in conversation on specific themes, in order to bring out new connections and similarities between their diverse artistic research, avoiding any conceptual imposition and letting the works retain their own individual meaning. The second exhibition Sistema – Dematerializzazione – Testo attempts to release the works of the 3 artists from rigid historical-artistic classifications, revealing hidden layers of meaning and evoking broader – and often unexpected – realms of thought. An example of this is the interpretation of the typical relief canvases by Enrico Castellani. Only appearing monochrome and rational at first glance, the system of formations created by the artist is instead a trace of a hidden, almost narrative creative process, akin to a text.

An example of this is the interpretation of the typical relief canvases by Enrico Castellani. Only appearing monochrome and rational at first glance, the system of formations created by the artist is instead a trace of a hidden, almost narrative creative process, akin to a text. The succession of these traces left by precise pictorial acts, a real “writing”, is not limited to conveying a message, but invites the viewer to determine its meaning, thus inviting an active participation in a communal situation, and in this, it has the role of materialising that which is shared. With this in mind, Castellani’s work stimulates the creative perception and reinterpretation of repeated visual and sculptural phenomena. The evocative potential of writing is undoubtedly a subject of study for Maurizio Nannucci. Through his luminous neon writings – carrying an evident sensual and material characteristic – he operates at semantic and immaterial levels. These scriptural structures, by virtue of their relationship with specific spatial and architectural realities, stimulate the unfolding of imaginary, poetic and intelligible meanings. And imagining other meanings implies a re-evaluation of conventions, and a freedom of interpretation of time and space that we live in, as suggested by the iconic work “Trace of time and space” of 2006.

Peter Wuethrich also works with the exploration of the semantic layers of the text. Words taken from texts with a strong emotional charge, communicate intelligible and intimate realities. But above all, the book is the characterising subject matter of the artist’s work, intended as an ambassador and physical protector of the intangible and spiritual entity of the text. As Hegyi writes, «their [the book’s] existence is the suggestion of something different; their presence is an indication of something not present; their function is the materialisation of something immaterial, the visualisation of an in-between state. This in-between state relates to mediation between the sender and the receiver of the message, on the one hand, and between the intelligible message, the immaterial idea and the rationally structured, semiotic system on the other hand.» The text, with its semantic potential, alludes to immaterial dimensions and often heralds something new, imaginary, not yet visible. An evocative power of enormous scope, well summed up by the neon work by Maurizio Nannucci, designed for the ArtLine contemporary art park in Milan: “New Times for Other Ideas New Ideas for Other Times” (2020).

Sistema - Dematerializzazione - Testo

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