isolation & self-identity crisis

:: EXHIBITION REVIEW ::

Nowhere Gallery, Milano (IT)

Pier Paolo Maggini

"UNA SOLITUDINE TROPPO RUMOROSA" (A very noisy solitude)

Yet another gallery located in the back of the courtyard, with a secret door that leads you back into the bustling streets of Milan. These things amuse me as a foreigner, yet at the same time is something I have gotten used to over the months I've spent in this country. I was told to visit this gallery because the owner, Orio Vergani, is a close friend and collegue of my boss Pasquale Leccese. I did not know what to expect, nor did I know what kind of art this gallery specialized in.

Upon arrival, I was greeted by a flustered, middle aged man, who was smoking pot and his aggressive dog. I thought I was going to be attacked by the dog, who kept barking verociously at me, but thankfully the owner pulled him back and told him to knock it off. Needless to say, the pot smoking and barking of his dog continued during the whole time I was at the gallery. Afterwards, I scoffed at the lack of professionality yet would have found it to be more humorous if these actions were done in purpose, as if to allude to the title of this exhibition as a whole.

This gallery may have been small and overlooked, but the artwork was poignant and powerful. Pier Paolo Maggini has created a series of detailed, realistic paintings of empty football (soccer) stadiums and race tracks, depicting what is described as "confined solitude between vitality and vivaciousness". These paintings are small, no bigger than 11 X 14 and are extremely detailed. These objects become alive, and are like forms of life to us: they are jolted from a point of restlessness and a more optical motion of what is real. They are not vital, and it is not the life of one to shake them, to cross them, but solely one's fiction, or better yet its desire, that is to be carried out.




The "waitings" represented in these paintings are the state of mind of those who will wait to get rid of a hidden inertia. It accumulates refusals from the trash dumps, which then attend to transform itself into masses, in compact structures. The end of these territories become landscapes. The shapes that fill up the stages, which eventually change themselves, become figures. Some works echo the fascination of the instinct ones that seems to take on while in these situations, acting dishonestly in order to exceed the anonymity. The painting is serenely pulverized, and is stretched to be ulteriorly dense, yet coincided.

This seems to be enough to get his message across and continue to ask why so many are "screaming in silence" yet cannot be heard. So many people are isolated, hidden in the seats of the stadium and wondering what their purpose in this world is. Like rubbish, so many people feel that they are isolated, and are only here to eventually rot away into the earth. Why bother with morality? Why even live?

Though depressing in nature, this was a powerful exhibit that although made one feel uncomfortable, are important questions to consider regarding why many feel we are simply a means to an end. We've created this concept. Just look at the empty stadiums/racing tracks.