Poggiali opens new location in Milan with a solo exhibition by Fabio Viale

Galleria Poggiali, one of the most active names in Italy on contemporary art, will open its new Milan location on January 18: for the occasion, Lucky Ehi, a solo exhibition by Fabio Viale (Cuneo, 1975), a sculptor and one of the most interesting contemporary Italian artists, will be inaugurated. The exhibition, curated by Sergio Risaliti, runs until March 30, 2018, and culminates in the display of a replica of Michelangelo’s Vatican Pieta with, instead of Christ, a black boy named Lucky Ehi. Fabio Viale’s project was created in collaboration with the Centro Accoglienza Straordinaria di Torino, run by the social cooperative “L’isola di Ariel.” A work that presents itself to the observer in the typical virtuosity of Fabio Viale, who decided with his new project to confront one of the most celebrated works of art history, adding new, topical content, suggesting to the observer the sufferings of a contemporary Christ.

There are a total of three works that Fabio Viale will bring to Milan. The second is a large poster with a portrait of Lucky Ehi, the man, of Nigerian origin, who as anticipated takes the place of Christ in the replica of Michelangelo’s Pieta: he is a man of Christian faith who was forced, at the age of only seventeen, to flee Nigeria because of religious persecution. The third work is an audio recording of Lucky Ehi’s account of the life and events he went through. “Three works,” we read in the presentation, “that together structure a unique text, in which artistic practice and art history, theology and poetry, different media, collide and measure themselves with the chronicle, between daily facts and geopolitics, to merge with human destiny, with suffering and injustice in the world.” Lucky Ehi, the presentation goes on to say, “is one of the many last of our society, which the artist wanted to portray in a dimension of maternal love that crosses all borders today more than ever - geographical, political, social and religious.”

Specifies curator Sergio Risaliti: “It is the individual story of Lucky Ehi that becomes central. A story that is exemplary, paradigmatic, yet similar to that of thousands of men and women who flee their country of origin in search of peace and well-being, freedom and brotherhood. Here the story of Lucky Ehi overlaps with that of Jesus. Lucky Hey is the exhausted man who finds peace on the Pieta instead of the Messiah. The Christian message in which the young Nigerian has placed hope-as witnessed by the tattoo-finds symbolic fulfillment. And in this story of our times, Mary-who is also church and community in religious iconography-is the mother, the lay community, who welcomes and embraces by consoling.”

The Milan branch of the Poggiali Gallery (the third, after those in Florence and Pietrasanta) intends to become, a place of research that aims to host only site-specific exhibitions: the artists involved will be asked to create a single project made specifically for the gallery. The exhibition opens on Thursday, Jan. 18. Information can be found on the Poggiali Gallery website: www.galleriapoggiali.com.

Poggiali opens new location in Milan with a solo exhibition by Fabio Viale

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