Invisible threads connect the work of the two artists Hyun Cho and Nicolò Masiero Sgrinzatto, on show at Galleria Ramo in Como with their double solo exhibition Risky Hardware, curated by Riccardo Lisi. They share a residence at Viafarini in Milan and above all a creative re-use of everyday objects and materials that take us, perhaps unintentionally, to places that are part of our imagination.

On one hand, the Paduan Nicolò Masiero Sgrinzatto, with his work Altro giro, altra corsa (Another ride, another race) immediately take us to an Italian piazza. The atmosphere is lethargic, and the lights of the carousels are off. The reflections on the transitory nature of play and adolescence take over. The first work that the visitor comes across is in fact a bumper car game. You can go on the bumper car with a special plastic key, available only to the owners. The work is made up of 8 enlarged keys made in different shapes, in natural and nickel-plated iron, positioned on a surgical-looking table. The creation process is the work itself. A metalworker friend of the artist offers to make the exhibits in secret. He takes them away, level by level (some keys have up to seven levels) – hiding these metal parts under his coat. This action is rewarded by the artist with some liters of craft beer and the partner, anonymously, attends the vernissage of the exhibition. At this point, the artist celebrates this risky action by exhibiting, in addition to the eight large metal keys, also the iron-beer contract and the declaration of intent to steal, in A4 format, but laser-engraved on iron using binary code. Lastly, Masiero Sgrinzatto is also exhibiting, to complete the action-performance, other four A4 sheets made of iron, containing the pdf files of the railway tickets taken by his partner in crime to be present, as complementary evidence of a conflict transfigured thanks to a current and very pop artistic epic.

Walking up the stairs of the gallery, in a formerly anonymous laundry room, a small neon work stands out in the second room, introducing the work of the artist Hyun Cho. The lights turn on again and here the imagery becomes that of the United States. Central Park and the noise of skateboard wheels hitting the ground with a clean, compact, flawless sound. Here the fun takes the form of skateboard wheels, a real fetish in the work of the Korean artist, who uses who in all the works on display uses skateboard parts she has recreated in colored and unbroken resin. These are precise and radical assemblages in which wheels and other components coexist with other technical materials: aluminum segments placed side by side or crossed and, indeed, luminous elements. As the curator Lisi writes: “Hyun Cho’s attention to colours – in the LED and neon lights – is remarkable, as her attention to the surfaces, often glittering, of the materials used. Hyun chooses to take risks, in her case creating sculptures that are the result of unusual combinations.” These works are a true expression of the cultural shock caused in the artist by having lived for many years in New York before settling in Europe. There she perceived great energy and freedom and here she brings it back with her own visual and design code.

The fulcrum of the exhibition thus becomes the appropriation of a stimulus, that of fun, and making it one’s own through its components of risk and transience. The artists become its interpreters through their own language, aseptic and playful.

Info:

Hyun Cho e Nicola Masiero Sgrinzatto. Risky Hardware
curated by Riccardo Lisi
15.05 – 25.07.21
Galleria Ramo
Via Borsieri 4/D, Como