Matter becomes wonder: four solo shows at Gaggenau in Rome and Milan

It kicked off on April 4, 2022, with the opening to the public in Milan of Paola Pezzi’s solo exhibition entitled Passaggi di stato, the new artistic cycle promoted by Cramum and Gaggenau. In fact, four solo exhibitions of four “master” artists of matter, such as Paola Pezzi, Flora Deborah, Stefano Cescon, and Giulia Manfredi, will take place over the course of the year in Gaggenau DesignElementi spaces in Rome and Milan; these will constitute the Materabilia project directed by Sabino Maria Frassà.

Materiabilia ’s four solo shows will tell the story of matter becoming wonder through human genius: if nature is extraordinary, the human being’s ability to shape matter brings us closer to such perfection. Only art is able to enable us to recognize the elusive Order only seemingly lost. Today more than ever, art allows us to dream, transforming the reality around us into wonder.

The pandemic has made clear the profound need for matter and reality: “after years of frustration and even physical limitations,” explains curator Frassà, “bitcoins and social is increasingly being countered by a need to see, do and touch. Human beings have returned to wanting concreteness and reality, even when dreaming: hungry for the present and laden with fears about tomorrow, we try to live the dream every day, rather than just thinking and planning it. Our gaze seeks in wonder at the reality around us the hope and strength to move forward. We therefore understand why contemporary art is so successful in our society: art is matter that reflects on matter, managing to give form and concreteness to human thought ... to its anxieties, its fears, but also to its joys and hopes. In the artistic gesture, capable of representing a different reality, the human being finds the courage to rethink the future beyond the contingent present. Capable of synthesis as only an image can be, empathetic and never trivial in its complexity, contemporary art is today the stuff of the future.”

What determines the quality of the artwork, however, is not the preciousness of the material, but rather the artist’s ability to see the future by giving form to any substance. The four featured artists of Materiabilia will therefore show, with common materials, imaginative futures... around the corner. A message of responsibility and possibility to rethink, with what we have, a better future. The cycle will feature in Rome Flora Deborah’s familiar lexicon made of seeds and chocolate; in Milan, Paola Pezzi’s spirals of matter and Stefano Cescon’s wax and kerosene paintings will be on display; finally, the journey will end in Rome with Giulia Manfredi’s natural sculptures.

Image: From Paola Pezzi’s solo exhibition, Passaggi di stato. Photo by Francesca Piovesan.

Matter becomes wonder: four solo shows at Gaggenau in Rome and Milan

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