Anticipazione della fine

Galerie Mazzoli is pleased to present Anticipazione della fine, the first solo exhibition in its Berlin space by Gabriele Silli. The exhibition presents a body of works made by the artist mostly between 2020 and 2022. Acid-treated papers, glues, resins, shellac, steel, wood, algae, teabags and other organic and inorganic materials are some of the elements that make up Silli’s artworks. The artworks reveal themselves as amorphous in their composition, albeit containing within themselves a myriad of unrecognizable shapes crystallized in a single body. The work process is therefore between action and the acceleration of the aging of matter. In this sense, the “anticipated end” of the title recalls an imagery of slow convergence towards decadence and destruction, which does not include, however, apocalyptic evocations and allusions. If anything, “messianic” time is called into question as the whirlwind and pleasure of catastrophe, the narration of which is left to matter itself.
Projecting from the wall, the series of works Untitled 20200and Germinal 2018 invite the gaze to get lost in the swirling encounter of materials. As aggregates, they convey an unknown landscape that, when traversed, often tricks the eye into unexpected details of uncertain origin. The two hanging sculptures Organo del sommerso n.2 and n.3 exasperate the transient character of matter in their suspension subjected to gravity. Here the submerged becomes recognition of the abyss, the organ is its tool.
Contrary to descending movement, Verga molata n.1, n.2 and n.3 emerge from the pavement. Steel is exposed and defined by the composition of the execution - as indicated in the title - of grinding. Placed on the edges of the platforms treated with glue and soil, the ferrous spikes reveal themselves as truly grim instruments.
Along with Ngannou, the artworks presented create an exhibition route contracted between two opposing poles, in a state of constant tension like protons and electrons in an atom: on one side the artworks whose materic jumble makes even the more familiar elements unrecognizable, their original characteristics concealed within the whole; on the other the artworks that coincide with the nature of the materials themselves, exposing their respective expressive force. Almost as if to quote the invisible dynamic that is the foundation of elementary particles, this duality translates into an itinerary that invites the viewer to engage with a slow discovery of matter, whose physical significance as substance - inevitably - plays with it being mere potential in relation to form.


Giuliana Benassi