Repetto Gallery opened its first location in London in 2007 and moved to Lugano in 2022. The gallery’s aim is to keep alive the memory of world-renowned Italian artists such as Burri, Ghirri, Fontana, to which must be added a manifest interest in the work of some protagonists of Arte Povera such as Alighiero Boetti, Pierpaolo Calzolari, Giulio Paolini, Michelangelo Pistoletto. The list also includes some of the most important international artists, such as Christo, Richard Long, Takesada Matsutani, Sadamasa Motonaga, Shirin Neshat and Jonathan Meese.

Arcangelo Sassolino, “Ipotetica”, 2024, glass and steel, 162.5 x 110 x 36.5 cm. Photography by David Melis; “I.U.B.P.”, 2024, steel, air, pneumatic, 65 x 66 x 69 cm. Photography by David Melis, courtesy Arcangelo Sassolino Studio, Repetto Gallery

Now the gallery is dedicating an exhibition to Arcangelo Sassolino, an already established artist, but certainly not as famous as the names mentioned above. Sassolino was born in 1967 in Vicenza, the city where he lives. His research originates from the interpenetration of art and physics, in the constant interest in mechanics and technology as a source of new possibilities for configuring sculpture and investigating the latent energies of matter. Speed, pressure, gravity, tension, pulsion from the inside out, compressed energy, force in power, are the factors that form the basis of rigorous research, always aimed at probing the ultimate limit of resistance and of no return. His works explore mechanical behavior, materials and the physical properties of forces, whether they are homogeneous or inhomogeneous. The works require careful planning and in-depth research since they focus on a strong physicality and on forces applied by or on an object

Arcangelo Sassolino, “Non separare il sì dal no”, 2024, granite, glass, steel, 24 x 355 x 53 cm. Photography by David Melis, courtesy Arcangelo Sassolino Studio, Repetto Gallery

Sassolino himself defines his works as “inorganic performances” playing, even on a semantic level, with the contradiction in terms that this description implies. Whispering between his teeth, and without disrespecting anyone, I am led to think that Sassolino’s possible thoughts have flown through a careful study of the poetics of Michelangelo and Gino De Dominicis: the stone thrown into water, waiting for impossible solutions, for example, can be a starting point, since the obvious contradiction between definition and action becomes a duty and a continuity, something that requires a debt and demands a solution. At least a formal one. And the form (the language, ultimately) in Sassolino is never absent: it is always something calibrated and controlled at an extreme level.

Arcangelo Sassolino, “Violenza casuale”, 2016, steel, wood, hydraulic system, dimensions variable. Photograph by Pamela Randon, courtesy Repetto Gallery

Arcangelo Sassolino’s curriculum is impressive, with exhibitions hosted in prestigious public venues. Here is a brief list: FRAC, Rheims, 2007; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2008; MACRO, Rome, 2011; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt and Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, 2016; Kunstverein, Hannover, 2019; La Residencia, Mallorca, 2023 and IV Industrial Art Biennale (IAB 04) in Labin, Croatia, 2023. As part of the 2022 Venice Biennale, Arcangelo Sassolino participated in the project curated by Keith Sciberras and Jeffrey Uslip for the Malta Pavilion with the installation Diplomazija astuta, conceived as a contemporary reinterpretation of Caravaggio’s masterpiece, “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist” (1608), preserved in the Oratory of St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta. A comparison that makes your wrists tremble.

Arcangelo Sassolino, “Sospensione della scelta”, 2024, granite, glass and iron, 120 x 85 x 55 cm; “Geografia del conflitto”, 2024, marble and steel, 101 x 28 x 22 cm. Photography by David Melis, courtesy Arcangelo Sassolino Studio, Repetto Gallery

Eight new works have been created specifically for the spaces of Repetto Gallery in Lugano, spaces with which the artist is dealing for the first time, with the aim of capturing the architectural character of the place, and ensuring that every constraint of the space can represent an added value to the creative process. Whether a constraint is posed by the distance between the columns or by the reinforced concrete wall, this constraint is resolved as an integral part of the sculptures on display and of the entire exhibition project. The result is a monumental and fascinating journey that unfolds without pauses and with a shortness of breath. Surfaces and materials such as glass, steel, tires, granite, industrial oil, wood, paper and marble coexist in the works. These elements take on a central role in an almost obsessive research in which all the individual components take on a new form. Through the use of air and mechanical movements, manipulating the physical forces of pressure and loosening, the artist has implemented a real transformation of the material that is configured as the pinnacle of his artistic expression.

Arcangelo Sassolino, “Work in progress”. Photograph by David Melis, courtesy Arcangelo Sassolino Studio, Repetto Gallery

As the title of this exhibition also suggests, Sassolino emphasizes the poetic suggestion that is embodied in his works, offering the juxtaposition of the elements that generically characterize industrial production and the materials of the sculptural tradition: an inevitable and necessary contradiction, which needs to occur, to collide and to find its final synthesis, in order to be able to generate it. The works, therefore, invade the spaces of the gallery, but it is the outside that first surprises visitors: they are welcomed by a “living” and multisensory installation that is destined to grow throughout the duration of the exhibition, involving not only sight, but also hearing and smell. Luca Massimo Barbero, scholar and art critic, director of the Institute of Art History of the Giorgio Cini Foundation, and associate curator of the Modern and Contemporary Art Collections of Intesa Sanpaolo, signs this splendid initiative, with his usual skill and ability to relate thought and form, writing and sign. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with texts by Andrea Cortellessa, Paolo Repetto and a conversation between curator and artist.

Fabio Fabris

Info:

Arcangelo Sassolino. No flowers without contradiction
curated by Luca Massimo Barbero
20/09/2024 – 18/01/2025
Repetto Gallery
Via C. Maraini 24
Lugano, Svizzera
repettogallery.ch

Juliet Art Magazine

is a contemporary art magazine since 1980