A solo exhibition by Simone Monsi in Milan to reflect on pollution and climate change

UNA and Spazio Leonardo present, from June 21 to September 14, 2018, the solo exhibition of the young Simone Monsi (Fiorenzuola d’Arda, 1988) entitled New Blabs on Clouds and Planes: this is a site-specific project specially developed for the Gallery of Spazio Leonardo (at 16/A Via della Liberazione, Milan), with which the Emilian artist develops uan reflection that starts from the observation of anomalous atmospheric phenomena, caused by excessive pollution resulting from human intervention on the environment and their perception mediated by the Internet. The exhibition also includes a new cycle of Transparent Word Banners, the works that helped make Monsi’s name known: these are slight colored Plexiglas structures bearing phrases on various topics, in this case phrases taken from the media debate on climate change. Still, the exhibition showcases some sculptures from the series Final Chapter, fabric totem-hands papered with images collected by following the hashtag #sunsetporn, through which Instagram users post images of sunsets, often beautiful but just as often unnatural.

“Simone Monsi’s visual action,” writes the curator, Rossella Farinotti, “reworks messages spread and scouted on the Internet. The artist reappropriates images of different types, which he obsessively collects for personal cataloguing, with an almost inductive method: from the general to the particular. Monsi is attracted to collective thought, which he makes intimate, bringing it to himself and re-indexing it as a calm, almost pleasant, critical complaint. This is done through bringing into play purely aesthetic visual reworkings. How to make palatable, clear and concise a thought thrown on the net and confused among others, which, in reality represents something tragic, dense and, in fact, common?”

Simone Monsi earned an MFA from Goldsmiths University of London in 2016 and currently lives and works in Milan. Exhibitions he has participated in include Refresh02 - #LAYERS. Contemporary Art in the Digital Era, curated by Fabio Paris and organized by iMAL, La Raffinerie, Brussels, 2018; Hyper-Faded Ordinary Life. Simone Monsi and Lucia Cristiani, curated by Carlo Sala, TRA Treviso Ricerca Arte, Treviso, 2018; Deposito d’Arte Italiana Presente, curated by Ilaria Bonacossa and Vittoria Martini, Artissima, Turin, 2017; Utopias are more or less fascistic, curated by Roxane Bovet, Nicolas Krupp, Basel, 2017; Spero che questo trasloco sia l’ultimo (solo show), Placentia Arte, Piacenza, 2017; Cyphoria, curated by Domenico Quaranta, 16th Quadriennale d’arte, Rome, 2016. In 2018 he was the winner of the call promoted by Regione Piemonte-Direzione Agricoltura in collaboration with Artissima for the design of the coordinated image of Spazio Regione Piemonte within the 52nd edition of Vinitaly, Verona. In 2017 it won the Francesco Fabbri Prize for Contemporary Arts, Pieve di Soligo (TV) and received a special jury mention at the CARIOCA KIDS Prize, Artissima, Turin.

UNA was born in spring 2018 in Piacenza, from the artistic direction of the last three years of Placentia Arte, as a new reality dedicated to contemporary art. UNA continues the work done with the artists presented between 2015 and 2017 in the space of Placentia Arte and, in parallel, aims to expand its activity, opening to new collaborations, with a more dynamic and international approach. As a fundamental point, the ’focus on emerging artists and the value of the research presented is maintained.

The exhibition New Blabs on Clouds and Planes is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. From Aug. 6 to 24 it will observe the following hours: Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. Closed on August 15 and 16. For more info: www.unagallery.com.

Pictured: totems from the series Final Chapter.

A solo exhibition by Simone Monsi in Milan to reflect on pollution and climate change

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