No Diamonds in the Sky: at the Pastificio Cerere the solo exhibition of Davide Mancini Zanchi

In Rome, at the Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, you can visit until July 21 NO DIAMONDS IN THE SKY, the first solo exhibition in Rome by Davide Mancini Zanchi (Urbino, 1986), curated by Marcello Smarrelli, with a text by Saverio Verini. Davide Mancini Zanchi uses painting, sculpture, installation and performance in a conceptual and ironic key, his poetics distinguished by the production of objects and scenarios where traditional artistic media exchange roles and functions mixed with common elements taken from everyday life. The performative experience, the irreverent and at the same time carefully studied approach, the use of heterogeneous materials, and the plurality of cultural references, enact a process of decontextualization of reality that creates disorienting and striking scenarios.

For the Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, the artist presents NO DIAMONDS IN THE SK Y - a title inspired by the Beatles ’ song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - a site-specific installation designed for the SILOS space, inspired by its most iconic cycle, that of the Skies. Mancini Zanchi has created many skies scattered with bright white stars, a direct reference to the frescoed vaults of churches and sacred buildings found throughout Italy and characteristic of medieval art. Mancini Zanchi’s skies are not made through a traditionally pictorial gesture, but contemplate an important element to his artistic practice: action. The stars, in fact, are the result of a game as irreverent as it is exhausting, a performance carried out in an absolutely private way, chewing paper and spitting it - literally - on the monochrome surface through the use of a Bic pen transformed into a blowgun.

A tragic starry sky - if one thinks of the physical effort to achieve it - and at the same time dreamy - if traced back to the playful attitude - with the obvious dualism that characterizes his poetics, charged with the historical and ancestral weight that always accompanies this particular iconography.

The mechanical and stressful repetition of a game between students creates a “world”: in this unprecedented link between stars and saliva, between the energy of the action and the serenity that evokes the final outcome, should perhaps be sought the reason why Mancini Zanchi’s skies turn out to be devoid of any rhetoric.

Davide Mancini Zanchi lives and works in Acqualagna(PU), a small town between the Adriatic Sea and the mountains of the Apennines. After attending theAcademy of Fine Arts in Urbino, in 2014 he was a guest in residence at the DENA Foundation for Contemporary art, in the Paris office, and in 2018, at BoCs Art - Artistic Residencies in Cosenza. His work has been exhibited in public and private spaces in Italy and abroad. Solo exhibitions include: Mira il mare mà lè(Fondazione Pescheria, 2021); Toys are us(A+B gallery, Brescia, 2019); Da che mani vidi Zan Cin(Otto Gallery, Bologna, 2019); La Conquista dello Spazio(Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino, 2016); among the most recent group shows: Mechanics of Wonder(Chiesa di San Giacomo al Mella, Brescia, 2019); Vie di fuga(Societé Interludio, Turin, 2018); Chi utopia mangia le mele(Ex dogana merci, Verona, 2018).

Over the years, his research has received numerous awards: Centro Arti Visive Pescheria Prize (2011), Lissone Prize (2014) and Treviglio Prize (2016); he was also a finalist for the Talent Prize (2019) and the Club Gamec Prize (2018). He also won theItalian Council in 2020 with a residency project in Uruguay. In 2022, MONOCHROMO, edited by Gabriele Tosi, published by Cura.Books was released where his artistic journey is outlined.

For all information, you can visit the official website of the Pastificio Cerere Foundation.

No Diamonds in the Sky: at the Pastificio Cerere the solo exhibition of Davide Mancini Zanchi

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