Fondazione ICA Milano presents, from Wednesday 10th April to Friday 19th July 2024, the exhibition Notizia, first solo show in Milan by Brazilian artist Erika Verzutti (São Paulo, 1971). The exhibition is curated by Chiara Nuzzi and Alberto Salvadori and is conceived for the ground floor of Fondazione ICA Milano. The project offers a selection of several sculptural works that Verzutti created almost entirely in Milan between 2023 and 2024, building an insight into the artist's long practice.
The exhibition’s title Notizia, refers to the strong impact that the constant circulation of information has on the artist and her creative process. Starting from the sense of anxiety that Erika Verzutti finds in being exposed to a continuous flow of data, in the spaces of Fondazione ICA Milano sculptures in bronze, ceramic, paper and resin unfold, evoking totemic figures inspired to elements which recall the natural and the artificial world such as tropical fruits, eggs and newspaper sheets. The landscape designed by the artist's works is marked by the unprecedented presentation of her most iconic works, many of which are intentionally displayed horizontally.
As Chiara Nuzzi and Alberto Salvadori explain in the introductory text to the exhibition: "Verzutti's sculpture is not new to concepts of disobedience and irreverence, the founding elements of a practice centered on the experimental and speculative study of the survival of images. It is precisely from this challenge that the artist asks how it is possible to produce works of art in a present characterised by increasing inequality and instability such as the one in which we live".
The exhibition begins with a focus into the formal explorations that Erika Verzutti dedicates to the element of the tower, traditionally understood as a vertical figuration and here displayed in a horizontal position. Works such as Tower of Eggs with News, 2024; Notizia, 2024; Tower of Jackfruits with Philosopher's Stone / Torre de Jacas com Pedra Filosofal, 2024 formulate a challenge to the usual methods of presenting a work of art in a museum’s context, following an experimental approach that explores the space and its meanings. Venus Revolta too, in its ancestral evocation of the female figure reminiscent of the Venus of Willendorf, is presented in an unusual way, upturned towards the floor, emphasizing its sinuous forms. The work alludes to a conception of the female body, perceived as a captivating object to be devoured, in an exploration of the theme of fertility that Erika Verzutti explores through the continuous references to the themes of the fruit and the egg.
Notizia continues with the series of bronze bas-reliefs exhibited on the walls, an important component of the artist's research. The works, which in some cases incorporate newspaper cuttings and prints, are direct references to previous productions, as in Homeopathy and News, 2024, where Verzutti employs colored ovals carved into the material to refer back to a sculpture with a similar name created in 2018. Evoking masculine movements such as modernism and futurism, the artist questions certain paradigms of human knowledge, which are gradually revealed through nuances, scratches and touches of color.
Drawing inspiration from the structural and architectural elements of the Fondazione ICA Milano, Notizia addresses the many lines of research that characterize the artist's work, such as vernacular culture, domesticity, the digital world and social conflicts, creating a space of creative, social and political freedom.
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