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Una cosa divertente che non farò mai più

Davide Sgambaro


exhibition views at Rita Urso artopiagallery, Milan

September 25 - October 19, 2018

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​Photos by Natalia Trejbalova

A solo exhibition by Davide Sgambaro, whose poetics is characterized by an almost "humanist" approach: central to his work is the interest in human nature caught in all its aspects and, in parallel, in the literary forms attempting to investigate it. Recurrent in his work are the themes of confrontation with oneself, and of personal memory: the latter, in particular, is understood as a stratification of experience that settles deeper and deeper as time passes - until it reaches an occult, almost inaccessible place.

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It is precisely this image of an ideal oblique descent towards the intimacy of the individual that guides the project presented in the gallery. The movement tilted from the outside to the inside is, indeed, the pattern followed by the exhibited works, physically distributed from a corner of the ground floor to the opposite corner of the upper floor. The exposition consists in two series of works on the borderline between two-dimensionality and threedimensionality, strongly influenced by the artist's autobiographical experience. On the ground floor, we find an installation of small monochrome paintings entitled "Head of an old woman with a veil around the head": these ten canvases are the result of a careful chromatic study that recalls (yet without perfectly replicating them) the colors dominating the artworks that inspired Sgambaro's research. In their oblique arrangement, ideally from left to right, these monochromes also recall an actual bow - intended as a tribute to Giorgione: with him indeed, the artist shares some recurring themes, including that of the inexorable passage of time, of decline, of “memento mori”. These themes are found even more clearly in the series of works giving its name to the whole project - "A supposedly fun thing I will never do again". A sort of sociological (and humorous) report from a trip on an extra-luxury cruise in the Caribbean, this text, among the best known of the American author David Foster Wallace, indicates for Davide Sgambaro the possibility to go deep in telling the story of the human soul moving from an evident level of superficiality (the extemporaneous bubble of a holiday experience), emphasising at the same time the role of memory: the only possible residue of an absolutely ephemeral experience. The series of sculptures taking its name from here is made of brass and pannolenci, two materials that represent the present and its deterioration respectively (the brass plates will gradually show signs of manufacturing, scratches and the natural beginnings of the oxidation process) and the immutability of the memory represented (the pressed wool). Concluding the exposition, in a more playful spirit, is a neon with the words "You have to bury me twice": after a sort of descent towards the hidden human intimacy, this is a return to its superficial, almost cynical aspect, ideally leading the visitor to the exit.

Accompanying the exhibition is a publication with a critical appendix by Lisa Andreani.

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Davide Sgambaro

Davide Sgambaro (Cittadella, 1989) lives and works between Milan and Turin. He studied Visual Arts at the IUAV of Venice, later specialising at the Ecole National Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Among his main exhibitions, residences (?) and awards we mention: "Love me tender", Stonefly Art Prize, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan (2018); Combat Prize (first prize for the section sculpture and installation), Giovanni Fattori Museum, Livorno (2017); Francesco Fabbri Prize, (special mention of the jury), Fabbri Foundation, Pieve di Soligo (2016); 100th collective of young artists Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice (2016); "Le projet de l'étoile", The Non-Maison Foundation, Aix-en-Provence, France, (2016); "Ecole des regards" (first Visual Poetry prize), Aix-en-Provence, France (2016); Atelier Bevilacqua La Masa, residence and collective exhibition, Venice (2015-2016); Spinola Banna Foundation for Art, residence by Guido Costa and Gail Cochrane (2015); "A Symphony of Hunger Digesting Fluxus in Four Movements", A + A Gallery, Venice (2015).

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