First exhibition in Milan for BPER Bank Gallery: contemporary art by Dusi on display

BPER Banca Gallery is presenting for the first time in Milan an exhibition of contemporary art by artist Fabrizio Dusi, curated by Giorgia Ligasacchi. Produced in collaboration with the art team of Pavesio e Associati with Negri-Clementi, under the patronage of the City of Milan, the exhibition is on view from June 1 to October 15, 2023 at the historic Milan headquarters of Banca Cesare Ponti, BPER Banca’s private bank.

The works of Fabrizio Dusi (Sondrio, 1974), a visual artist, painter and ceramicist, give life to an unprecedented project that stems from the close relationship between the bank’s tradition and identity and the author’s pop-cartoon language.

The exhibition brings together a selection of significant works from Dusi’s production, alongside installations created especially for the occasion. These include Allthat glitters is not gold, which gives the exhibition its title. A large yellow neon light illuminates the entrance to the venue, marking the physical and conceptual transition from outside to inside, from glitter to gold. The quote is taken from William Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice.

The exhibition itinerary unfolds along the ground floor of the Bank, characterized by a unique aesthetic thanks to the late 19th-century currency exchange counter and the dark wood paneling lining the interior, and through the large windows facing Via Giuseppe Mengoni and Via Carlo Cattaneo, making the exhibition visible and appreciable from the outside as well, in continuous dialogue with the Piazza and the city. The choice of the exhibition space emphasizes the importance of art and culture in daily life, as a tool for personal and collective growth, but also of the dialogue between people, open and focused on real values, care and attention, which BPER Bank has as its mission objectives.

“Hosting this exhibition in the historic headquarters of Banca Cesare Ponti,” said Fabrizio Greco, CEO and General Manager of Banca Cesare Ponti, “is for us a privilege and a valuable opportunity to be able to open our spaces to citizens and to strengthen relationships, which are at the heart of the Bank’s mission. In fact, we want to have a continuous, open and fruitful confrontation with our customers, just as the artist seems to suggest through his works. The exhibition is an opportunity to reflect on the importance of proper communication, which has always characterized Cesare Ponti’s work, based on dialogue and listening to people.”

“The BPER Banca Gallery,” says Sabrina Bianchi, Head of Brand and Marketing Communication and Cultural Heritage at BPER Banca, “with this first exhibition in Milan, wants to take the opportunity to bring an in-depth look at contemporary art, promoting culture in its broadest sense with topical issues that, in the specifics of this exhibition, connect to the world of communication and dialogue. This is an unprecedented project that blends the tradition conveyed by the prestigious location with the contemporary pop-cartoon language of the artist. Our desire is to be able to involve every visitor so that, thanks to Dusi’s works, they can reflect on the relevance of the way we communicate, even in a contemporary world that is experiencing a continuous transformation of the delicate balance between physical and digital.”

Closely conceived in relation to the context of the Bank and its daily activities, the exhibition itinerary offers an original and unconventional view of the works and the place, not only for Cesare Ponti’s clients but also for visitors who will exceptionally have the opportunity to discover the spaces and the exhibition, through free guided tours by reservation(https://allthatglittersisnotgold.eventbrite.it).

“What the artist delivers to us,” explains curator Giorgia Ligasacchi, “is a complex and dramatic portrait of today’s humanity, an exact and coherent mirror that reflects and investigates the social dynamics between people with a focus on the distances that unite us. Hope is encapsulated in the chromatic optimism and the very choice of contemporary pop language - simple, direct and understandable to all - and the material used (isothermal, a symbol of protection from life’s upheavals and difficulties), which becomes the spokesperson for a positive message and trust towards others, towards a newfound communicability and human harmony.”

Neon, ceramics, wood and isothermal material are the media Dusi has chosen for the twenty works on display, united by the red thread of dialogue between people, open and inclusive, which has always been at the center of his research. A theme he entrusts to social icons, characters in colored glazed ceramic or painted on isothermal material, spokesmen for vital messages. “I make art to communicate, it seems trivial but it is so, it is also a way to be heard,” says the artist.

The tour begins from the outside, from the three large shop windows on Via Cattaneo covered, almost entirely, with iridescent gold-colored sheets, and continues along Via Mengoni where three large paintings covered in golden isothermal material, also designed and painted by Dusi’s typical Folle, hang. Groups of characters huddled on each other, “claustrophobic photographs in which there seems to be no way out,” comments the curator. The material used by the artist is symbolic: the isothermal blanket brings to mind the “state of emergency” and, therefore, the need for warmth and protection from the traumas and burns of life, which humans obsessively seek, and for survival in an often difficult society.

At the main entrance, there is the glowing sign All that glitters is not gold, in front of which the visitor will pause to reflect on the message the artist wants to convey. Between the corridors, desks and waiting room are positioned Dusi’s classic Bla Bla Bla, glazed ceramic sculptures mounted on a wooden base, depicting bald men in suits or T-shirts and blond women in colorful dresses, all strictly without ears and with their mouths wide open from which bubbles emerge, empty but playful, floating in space, invading the walls of the venue.

Through his typical irony, biting but subtle, playing with the environment and context in which he is placed, Fabrizio Dusi delivers to the public his own creative universe, inhabited by characters who openly converse with visitors.

Completing the exhibition project are two new works: Classic Family for La Galleria BPER, the only work in which the dialogue is direct as it consists of two characters close to each other, and Gold Lingot, a monumental installation that reproduces the features of a large gold ingot that is reflected and manifested in all its grandeur through the large mirror in the main hall, drawing the visitor’s attention to the title of the exhibition and the question, “But what is real gold?”

The exhibition will be accompanied by guided tours and talks that will enable the public to get closer to Fabrizio Dusi’s work and the most current issues in contemporary art. These will include some tours conducted in collaboration with the FAI Youth Group of Milan.

For info: www.lagalleriabper.it

Photo by Sofia Alberti

First exhibition in Milan for BPER Bank Gallery: contemporary art by Dusi on display

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