Milan, the Civic Aquarium becomes... pop, with the works of Luca Bertasso

From June 4 to July 4, 2021, theCivic Aquarium of Milan becomes. Pop: in fact, Luca Bertasso ’s (Turin, 1968) solo exhibition entitled Pop Aquarium, curated by Chiara Canali and Antonella Mazza and organized by Art Company, opens on these dates. The exhibition, promoted by Comune di Milano - Cultura and Acquario Civico, presents an unpublished series of 100 tempera paintings on paper dedicated to the aquarium theme and set up at the Acquario Civico di Milano, an Art Nouveau building located at the entrance to Parco Sempione, between Castello Sforzesco and the Arena, the third oldest aquarium in Europe.

Bertasso’s Aquariums, created starting in 2012, constitute a true encyclopedic visual repertoire, starting with the letter A and arriving at Z to start again from the number 1 and currently arrive at 60. While dense with numerous literary and historical references, from the friezes of ancient Mesopotamia to the bestiaries of medieval literature, from the sculptural decorations of monsters carved in cathedrals to the fantastical hybridizations of comic books, the Aquariums are meant to speak of our present, denouncing our frenetic condition, the profound crisis of values we are indifferently witnessing. They are Pop TV screens that air fantastic worlds populated by anthropomorphic fish on sea-blue backgrounds.

What Luca Bertasso wants to present to the public is a liquid universe punctuated by noir or surreal atmospheres, teeming with hybrid creatures, with Greek and Egyptian features, reminiscent of the Flemish fantasies of Hieronymus Bosch and the harmless nightmares of Heinrich Füssli, and declaring their debt to the studies of Jurgis Baltrušaitis and the fantasies of Jorge Luis Borges. The declaration best before or expiry date is meant to remind us that everything is vacuity and shows how urgently needed is an awareness of how we operate in our living environment and in our mad daily metropolitan rush. Surreal fish with very human features, overloaded with elements and details, in a horror vacui that reflects the mechanisms of accumulation and estrangement of our contemporary society and suggests deep reflections on the art of living.

“Just as Warhol, with his cold and detached viewpoint, takes the module not only on a compositional level but also on an anthropological level,” Chiara Canali states in her critical text, “so Bertasso uses the element of the module and makes it a multiple and infinite element, to describe a variegated anthropomorphic fauna where the individual is transformed into man-mass, into multiplied man, trapped by the production system within a now stereotyped condition.”

“The Aquariums,” explains Antonella Mazza, “are x-rays of our interiority, our mind, our soul, with all the various characters that populate it. And also snapshots of our everyday life, denouncing our unrestrained living and leading us to reflect on the future of our planet. The display with the Vacuum Aquariums wants to send a message of environmental defense and denounce the indiscriminate use of plastic: let’s leave it to art and take it away from Nature.”

Renewable energy and emissions reduction are issues we passionately share with Amedeo Clavarino’s SOS Planet Foundation, which is committed to awakening consciences about the need to become net CO2 neutral by 2030 to save humanity from global warming. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog published by EMMEGI Contemporary, with a preface by Filippo Del Corno, councilor for culture, Domenico Piraina, director of Milan’s science museums, and critical texts by Chiara Canali and Antonella Mazza.

Full details on the program, information, opening days and hours, and access for visitors are posted on the institutional website www.acquariodimilano.it.

Luca Bertasso was born in Turin in 1968. He moved to Milan and studied first at the Liceo Classico and then at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. He made his debut at a very young age in Milan in 1989 with a solo exhibition at Compagnia del Disegno (Gallery where he will hold three more Personals with related catalogs in 1993, 2005 and 2010), presented in the catalog by Giovanni Testori and Chiara Canali. In 1995 he won the competition that allowed him to make an important solo exhibition with monograph at the Musée Municipal de Saint Paul de Vence. He then took part in several solo and group exhibitions and moved to New York where, in the late 1990s, the idea of the work with a visible expiry date(Expiry date or Best before and then a date placed in a completely random future) was born. Idea that the painter continues to pursue as a personal and stainless “trademark.” A 2005 Celeste Prize finalist, his numerous solo exhibitions include: Metrosexual (2007) at Galleria delle Battaglie in Brescia, Full Optional (2008) in the Milan gallery Bianca Maria Rizzi, L’Acquario e gli archetipi di Luca Bertasso (2012) at the Brescia gallery I Monaci sotto le stelle Arte Contemporanea. Among his numerous group exhibitions: in 1997 at the Casa dei Carraresi in Treviso Ritratti a Testori, in 2008 at the Liu Haisu Art Museum in Shanghai Masters of Brera, the two group shows Senza mani! (2001) and Christmas Rodeo (2010) at Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea in Milan. Finally, in 2012, Artquake - the Art of Solidarity, a group exhibition for charity held in Reggio Emilia in favor of earthquake victims. His subjects are outlined with a few decisive and essential strokes, with bright, two-dimensional backgrounds, according to a predominant use of color very characteristic of his work. The drawing of the silhouettes relies on an important contour line, which has its formal origin in the textures of Fernand Léger, brought to its maximum expressive results by Keith Haring and declined here in a very original way thanks to the intervention, in addition to black, of squillant hues, which become the load-bearing profile of the work. Two lines of expression can be found in Luca Bertasso’s artistic research: on the one hand, the typification of the subject, according to the expressly Pop canons, and on the other hand, the surreal Magrittian game of the superimposition of different elements, writings, objects, numbers. Have written about him, among others: Emilio Tadini, Flavio Arensi, Marco Meneguzzo, Mimmo Di Marzio, Gianluca Marziani, Chiara Canali, Francesca Baboni, Viviana Siviero, Alessandro Riva, Simona Bartolena, Marina Mojana. He lives between Milan and New York.

Milan, the Civic Aquarium becomes... pop, with the works of Luca Bertasso

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.