Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan
From 23 February to 30 July 2023, Pirelli HangarBicocca presents "NOw/here" the solo exhibition of Gian Maria Tosatti (Rome, 1980; lives and works in Naples), one of the most interesting Italian artists in recent years, who represented Italy at the 59. Venice Biennale in 2022. With an unprecedented intervention in the Shed space, Tosatti will offer viewers a chance to experience aspects of his practice that have never been introduced before.
The exhibition "NOw/here" curated by Vicente Todolí, consists of two series of works presented for the first time at Pirelli HangarBicocca. Although Tosatti deliberately developed the exhibition to answer the call for a retrospective project, he has conceived the show in a highly specific way, by creating new works which epitomize the feelings that have influenced his research over the past two decades. The body of work is built around large-scale elements that embody a dialogue with the Zeitgeist (Spirit of the time), and the sentiment of the generation to which the artist belongs. The pieces are conceived as "mirrors," open questions that directly confront the visitor.
"Right from the title, whose pronunciation differs depending on the perspective chosen by the reader, the exhibition is an invitation to delve into an environment that seems to pose an open, simple, intimate question to those who cross its threshold: ‘how do you feel?’" the artist comments. Indeed, the exhibition concept effectively crosses the limits of the environmental installation, while retaining a close connection with the architecture of Pirelli HangarBicocca and giving shape to a space of its own— that of vision, experience, and of an approach to art as transcendence.
Through this new body of works, Gian Maria Tosatti captures the essential aspects of the human condition at such a difficult moment in time, and of a society poised between catastrophe and evolution. An experience that visitors can undergo hic et nunc, and that unfolds without predetermination, free from any conditioning. The works reconnect with the very moment when reality reveals itself, as evoked by the exhibition title "NOw/here" whose elements can be read individually, as "now" and "here," or sequentially, as in "nowhere." This project is a coherent continuation of the artist's poetic journey, showing extensive references to many of his past works, from Testamento – devozioni X (2011), to the more recent Episode of Odessa (2020) and History of Night and Destiny of Comets (2022). In "NOw/here" Tosatti seems to confront History, interpreting it not as a chain of events, but as a feeling, while trying to capture the moment to which we belong.
For more information: www.pirellihangarbicocca.org
