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I forgot about you. Giulio Galgani's exhibition at the MA-EC Gallery Milano.

Thursday 28 November 2024 at 18 pm, at the MA-EC Gallery in Palazzo Durini in Milano (via Santa Maria Valle 2), the personal exhibition I forgot about you by the artist Giulio Galgani opens

I forgot about you. Giulio Galgani's exhibition at the MA-EC Gallery Milano.

Thursday 28 November 2024 at 18 pm, at the headquarters of the MA-EC Gallery in Palazzo Durini in Milano (via Santa Maria Valle 2), the personal exhibition opens I forgot about you artist Julius Galgani curated by the art historian Daniela Pronesti. On display is a series of recent works – with the exception of some sculptures from the early 1958s – which well describe the concepts on which Galgani's (XNUMX) artistic research has always been based, namely memory, roots, belonging. The complete opposite of what the title suggests, which, in a provocative way, speaks of oblivion, forgetfulness and distraction to emphasize everything that, on the contrary, deserves to be remembered and brought back to the center of both individual and collective attention.

An idea of ​​“recovery” that Galgani’s art declines on the technical-expressive front as well as on the conceptual one. On the one hand, in fact, his work denotes a vital and fierce relationship with matter be it natural or artificial, organic or inorganic, an expression of peasant culture or industrial production: what happens, in any case, is at the same time a recovery and an aesthetic redemption of elements that the artist not only transforms into something new, thanks to a process of radical re-signification, but also preserves their original memory by making it enter into the work. The “matter” thus becomes the protagonist not only because it is the object of “transformation” but also because it is valorized in the light of its own symbols, meanings and signs.

The result is works that, by escaping the usual artistic categories, confirm the hybrid nature of Galgani's expressive register, which does not allow any distinction between painting and sculpture, plant materials and industrial elements, traditional tools and personal techniques. The organic and the inorganic coexist in his works, recalling the contrast between authenticity and artifice, the vital energy of nature and the action of man. The aim is first of all to go back to the roots of the Tuscan identity, the one in which Galgani recognizes himself and which has fueled his inspiration since his figurative debut with works inspired by archaic Etruscan sculpture, to then arrive, several years later, at objects such as spades, pitchforks and sickles - banners of human work that become part of his symbolic repertoire both as installations and as elements reworked in a graphic-pictorial key - and then arrive at the Escaped landscapes, clods of Tuscan earth ideally taken from the original context and placed in a vase to allude to the landscape as a set of memories to be passed down and protected. A way, therefore, to express the his connection with the culture and the "signs" of the territory in which he lives and more generally with the values ​​of the land understood as a heritage of symbols and knowledge that risk being lost in the era of globalization.

In this exhibition, Galgani's gaze goes from the homage to great protagonists of culture - as in the cycle dedicated to Giacomo Puccini in the year of the anniversary of his death – to the “presences” of the landscape with the series of Nomadic trees, or installations – obtained by mixing pieces of wood, color and other materials – in which the tree, no longer sedentary, sets itself in motion to express, on a symbolic level, a rooting in its own culture, in its own territory, which does not result in being “radical”, and therefore does not close or limit thought, but rather facilitates it, makes it possible, because it allows one to carry with oneself an identity heritage that becomes wealth to be shared. Nature, as an explicit reminder of the fundamental values ​​of living, therefore offers itself as a context for reflection with which Galgani reminds us that, in the post-modern era,characterized by lack of ties, vulnerability and uncertainty, we are all nomads in search of roots. Trees – suggests the artist – in transit from one land to another, each loaded with memories and meanings – like those evoked by the material and the sign in these works – that we carry with us as a legacy that is both personal and collective, symbols of a lost or forgotten belonging and of the need to rediscover one's roots.

The series of the Sunflowers, material-pictorial stylization of forms that recall the flower and its location in the landscape, but also the recent project with which Galgani moves from the land to the sea and the "presences" that characterize it, such as the fishing net, which in these works symbolizes social and cultural, personal and collective dynamics that entangle lives, experiences, relationships, in an inexplicable tangle. Networks that capture, therefore, represent an obstacle, limit freedom, but can also be understood as an opportunity for connection, a means to enter into a relationship with others, with the surrounding reality, in a non-virtual and ephemeral way, but real and concrete, in a direct relationship with things. The nets that Galgani applies on the canvas, mixing them with other materials and colors, are a way to remind us – again the value of memory – that we are all connected, us and others, us and the nature around us, creatures among creatures, in deep connection with the living.   

The exhibition, ongoing until December 15th, will be open to the public from Tuesday to Friday 10am-13pm and 15pm-19pm, and on Saturday 15pm-19pm.

An original artist, protagonist of numerous exhibitions and events in Italy and abroad, Giulio Galgani is a character with a multifaceted creativity and an inexhaustible curiosity. After an initial figurative path in the early 2000s, he oriented himself towards an enigmatic dimension of art, of predominantly metaphysical inspiration, which, from 1958 onwards, will be followed by a completely new intellectual and human direction. Born in Genoa in 1990, he has lived in Tuscany for many years, immersed in the greenery of the Val Di Chiana, a land where he draws inspiration for many of his works. From 2012 to today he has held numerous solo exhibitions in private galleries and public spaces in Italy and abroad (China, America, Europe) curated, among others, by Martina Corgnati and Giovanni Faccenda. Of particular note are the anthologies: Chiostro del Bramante (Rome, 2012), Palazzo Bastogi (Florence, Tuscany Region, 2013), Palazzo Medici Riccardi (Florence, 2014), Palazzo Comunale di Pontassieve (2024). He is present in national and international public collections such as: Vatican Museums; Palazzo Comunale di Cortona; Museo Casa Natale di Michelangelo; Musicom Museum, Amberg; Assembly House, Norvik. In XNUMX he published his monograph edited by Skira with the title Portrait of an Irregular Artist.

www.giuliogalganiartgallery.it

MAEC gallery

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