It is said that Piet Mondrian was a dance enthusiast and took fox trot lessons. Always looking for a chance to go dancing, he poured his passion into paintings, such as Fox Trot A and Fox Trot B, from 1930s, and the Boogie-Woogie series, painted in the 1940s. He was said to dance like his paintings: rigid, abstract, geometric differently from the notes of fiery, lively music. Sorry Mondrian for the mess (2024), is a work by Cecilia Mentasti (Varese, 1993), which winks at Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1942). If the construction site lights, in a yellow iron structure, cool the environment with white lights, the song in the background warms with a romantic atmosphere.
Cecilia Mentasti, “Trimmed after a pattern”, installation view, photo Anna Pendoli, courtesy EXAMATO, Milano
Cecilia Mentasti once told me that she wanted to make a light exhibition, without superfluous weight or superficiality. Trimmed after a pattern, at EXAMATO, curated by Thomas Ba, with a text by Vittoria Caprotti, may be a first step toward this desire. Four works coexist in a small, low-ceilinged space. Sorry Mondrian for the mess illuminates Institute for snow (2024), two paper sheets on a dibond, with basic stars drawn on them, the kind you learn to make in childhood. Already immersed in the music we now admire the stars, our first approach to the work is to place it in a romantic, almost cloying mood. The way the stars are drawn seems a bit bizarre to us and arouses some suspicion. The work is commissioned by Mentasti to Walter Benjamin, not the philosopher (who died in 1940), but a namesake of his.
Cecilia Mentasti, “Untitled (Perfect day)”, 2023 – in corso, photo Anna Pendoli, courtesy EXAMATO, Milano
Overlooking matter of authorship, which is superfluous in this case, the work manifests the meaning of the exhibition: in love relationships there is always something we do not know and cannot understand. It is a misunderstanding that makes us feel inept at cultivating and maintaining relationships. It is something that seems to us to be very difficult, at least as much as understanding it, only to discover in the end that, as in art and film, there is fiction. On a plinth, sufficiently high, we find Untitled (Perfect day) (2023 – ongoing), one of the multiples in the series consisting of pistachio shells stuck together in a romantic vice, found by the artist while snacking. Again, Mentasti speaks of a ruthless, morbid and profound romanticism with a minimal spontaneous gesture. The exhibition closes (and opens) with we are just objects made of flesh (2023), an inscription in Times New Roman font scratched on plaster, an almost hidden presence, on the right side of the entrance, so self-explanatory that it cannot be retorted.
Cecilia Mentasti, “Trimmed after a pattern”, installation view, photo Anna Pendoli, courtesy EXAMATO, Milano
In spite of ourselves, we find ourselves in these situations all the time: misunderstandings, endless questions to answer doubts about what relationships between people are, hoping not to fall into narrow cynicism. The curator, Thomas Ba, puts Walter Benjamin’s quote, «The only way to know a person is to love him/her hopelessly» as the epigraph of his text, while Vittoria Caprotti indulges in a love letter in which Mentasti’s works burst in, as cues and references to intrusive thoughts about feelings.
Cecilia Mentasti, “we are just object made of flesh”, 2023, , photo Anna Pendoli, courtesy EXAMATO, Milano
Caprotti writes: «Unable to solve for me the temporal problem of amorosity – that is to say: unable to keep that stolid promise of eternity that is ‘Forever,’ because I am bored with everything and everyone – I see myself compelled to at least investigate the spatial aspects of relationships». These words, and the fact that they were written, are a tangible consequence of Mentasti’s works: as light and fragile as two jammed pistachio shells, like a carving on the wall (not eternal), but atrocious because they raise things of our own, hidden in our bellies. Things we have to come to terms with in order to resign ourselves to the fact that we are human and, as such, unfortunately have feelings.
Info:
Cecilia Mentasti. Trimmed after a pattern
a cura di Thomas Ba
20/09 – 17/10/2024
EXAMATO, c/o WMilano
via Washington 51, Milano
Lecce, 1999. After a three-year degree in Communication and Art Teaching and a two-year specialist course in Visual Cultures and curatorial practices at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, she collaborates with art magazines and with independent curatorial projects between Lecce and Milan.
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