Carlo Steiner

Italy

Turin

Gagliardi e Domke Contemporary

Painting

Dima N° 9

Dima N° 12

Dima N° 15

Dima N° 17

Dima N° 18

Dima N° 118

Curated by Lorena Tadorni

From February 24 and May 19 Gagliardi e Domke presents Spore, a solo show by Carlo Steiner, curated by Lorena Tadorni, where for the first time the artists presents thirty artworks. Created between 2018 and 2021, as a result of his current research on painting.

An artist who is used to experiment with unusual expressive techniques and materials, in this cycle of works for the first time relates to the pictorial material, and does so by adopting fungal spores as a pigment.
Nature has always been a constant source of inspiration for him. From butterflies made with flour and water - real ostie - to snow crystals made of iron, Steiner explored the relationship between artificio and nature, until it became the center of his research.
For some years the artist has been carrying out a study activity on the mycological universe, starting from an original, almost ancestral passion, which has always led him into the woods to plumb the fungal vegetation. By combining the act of exploration, direct experience that founds the work itself, with the pictorial research, Steiner made the intangibility of the spores the poetics of his latest works.
The exhibition by Gagliardi and Domke displays the artist's recent works, focused on this research.
"Since 2012 I collect mushrooms and I place them to drop the spores, in various colors, on glass plates - explains the artist. I chose not to use cultivated mushrooms, but to use wild mushroom pigments and to use only those for the composition of the image. Each one leaves different shades, for example the amanita muscaria, releases the white spores, the iantinosporei like the hypholoma fasciculare or false nail release a violet, and then there are the rodosporei, with pink spores ... Sometimes it only takes one night to obtain these glazes of pigments, sometimes two or three days - he continues - but not all mushrooms are the same, some are capricious, others are easy. "
Since 2012 Carlo Steiner has created a real process of collection, sedimentation and conservation of spores, directing his research on the rendering of color and shape in order to make an investigation on the very origin of painting. By perfecting the use of cardboard templates, he created shapes capable of "conveying" the spores within predetermined shapes, investigating a "take shape" of what the artist calls controlled randomness, a technique that involves a struggle between unpredictability and will, in an attempt to get them positioned where you want. In fact, the spores do not fall from the mushroom vertically, but being extremely volatile, they are affected by every slightest current of air, moving accordingly.
Fascinated by materia, and by how the randomness of the conditions in which it is found can influence the release of color in the desired quantity, whether determined by an inherent perishability or by climatic and soil-related factors, with the Spore series Steiner undertakes a challenge between nature and artificio, being aware of relying on a material that is certainly more "uncomfortable" than traditional painting, but seeking in it possibilities and chromatic variations with a very rich range. And it is from these expectations that, observing the slightest movements of the material, he gives birth to glass tables in which shapes and colors condense the lightness of the spores from which they are generated in the drama of a precarious but at the same time seductive tension.
Being extremely open-minded Steiner has participated in the SHAC project of the Babelica Cultural Association funded by the Crt Foundation: an educational path of collective curatorship of the exhibition entrusted to a fourth year class of the GE Pestalozzi primary school in Turin. Recently, the S.M.A.K. of Ghent has entrusted the rearrangement of part of the collection to boys and girls, and numerous institutions are working with a view to expanding their audience, paying special attention to the groups who do not normally use cultural projects. Joining the SHAC project by Carlo Steiner and the Gagliardi and Domke gallery allows one to rethink the curatorial process by sharing it, proposing a path of cultural welfare that believes in art and creative languages as tools to integrate the training offer and contribute to growth of the citizens of tomorrow.
Carlo Steiner (1957, Terni) lives and works in Milan. After the Liceo Classico he entered the NABA / New Academy of Fine Arts where he studied sculpture with Kengiro Azuma, history of art with Guido Ballo and environmental design with Gianni Colombo. In the nineties he taught at NABA as a sculpture assistant and between 2007 and 2010 he taught industrial design. Between 1984 and 2011 he worked as a graphic designer for newspapers and magazines: Il Sabato, Avvenire, Amadeus, L’Eco di Bergamo. Among his recent solo exhibitions: in 2013 he created an installation within the Conveying the Invisible program, curated by Sara Corona, for "No Longer Empty", Queens Bvld, New York; in 2005 and 2007 he exhibited at the Gagliardi Art System gallery in Turin, and in 2006 at Roberta Lietti Arte Contemporanea, Como. Among the group exhibitions: in 2015 he took part in “Why not?”, Curated by Chiara Massimello, at the Ersel headquarters in Turin; in 2013 he exhibited at “Homo faber,” curated by Mimmo Di Marzio, Castello Sforzesco, Milan; in 2012 at the Seminaria festival in Maranola (Formia); in 2010 at "Interface", curated by Barbara D’Ambrosio and Silvano Manganaro at the MLAC in Rome; in 2007 at the thematic exhibition "Lines on the horizon. Landscape between description and abstraction "curated by Maurizio Sciaccaluga, Gallery of Modern Art in Genoa; in 2006 at the exhibition “Outlook # 1 - Italian panorama”, curated by Luigi Fassi, Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin; in 2005 to "Contemporanea 3", curated by Emma Gravagnuolo, Municipal Art Gallery, Como. In 2006 he was artist in residence at Hotel Pupik, Schrattenberg Castle, Judenberg (Austria) and in 2008 he was selected among the special projects of Independence, at the non-profit space 1: 1 Project which operated between Rome and London. In 2015 he inaugurated the “Ternità” exhibition in Terni, his hometown, curated by Elisa Del Prete.
Gagliardi e Domke, founded in 2003 in Turin as Gagliardi Art System by Pietro Gagliardi, dedicates its attention to different expressive languages, from painting to new media, from sculpture to Net Art and young national and international talents.
In 2011 it moved to via Cervino 16, in a former wiring factory in the Barriera district of Milan, an area in rapid transformation, near the Ettore Fico Museum, design and artist studios, not far from the Nuvola Lavazza of the architect Cino Zucchi and from the Luigi Einaudi Campus, University of Turin designed by Norman Foster.
In 2015 Christian Domke joins Pietro Gagliardi and the gallery changes its name to Gagliardi and Domke. In the following years the gallery continued its mission of promoting young Italian and non-Italian artists, developing international projects and cooperations.
The gallery's exhibition spaces are cut out within the post-industrial structure in via Cervino 16, which also hosts the warehouses and exhibitions of the Gagliardi Art Collection which can be visited by appointment.
The collaborative relationship between Carlo Steiner and Gagliardi and Domke began in 2004. In 2007 the gallery organized the exhibition "Epoché", a large presentation of Steiner's experiences up to that year, then followed by the "Good news" exhibition, a critical observation of our perception of information in newspapers. Periodically, Gagliardi and Domke have exhibited Steiner's works in collective exhibitions on and off-site and in numerous international fairs.

Spore

Spore

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