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La Tempesta
Giacomo Segantin
exhibition views at Artopia Gallery, Milan
9th May - 12th July 2024
On the first floor, at the same time, Giacomo Segantin's (Abano Terme, 1995) solo exhibition entitled La Tempesta opens. In the two types of works here presented, specially conceived and produced for the gallery, the protagonist is the landscape, conceived as a complex space and meeting place between human and natural action.
In the photographic documentation of the intervention La Tempesta (2023), Segantin reflects on residual urban spaces, places where management and control are temporarily suspended, making them subject to continuous movement.
In collaboration with the wind and the natural spread of poplar inflorescence, the project was realized within the disused area of the former Falk steelworks and falls within the context of documentary photography of industrial archaeology.
luce (2024) opens the exhibition. The photographic work, placed at the top of the suspended staircase that connects the two floors of the gallery, is the key to the interpretation of the entire exhibition: a circular-shaped poplar floats brightly in the centre of the image, standing out against the darker background. A visual disruption, an organic invasion that multiplies and, blown by the wind, overlaps with the intricate spontaneous vegetation in the work grande nero (2024).
The temporal perspective of this movement is captured in the diptych il paradiso (2024), where the pappos, at different times, spread with more or less intensity against the pioneering vegetation backdrop, crossed by an enormous concrete beam. The material composition and layering of the foundations of architecture are the subject of geologia (2024), placed in close dialogue with the installation of organic material senza titolo (cercis siliquastrum) (2024) in the centre of the room. In this slender parallelepiped made of red lamium flowers, collected, dried and processed by the artist, architecture takes on a central role, by reflecting on the occupation of land and the forms imposed on space by modern structures. The installation becomes almost a construction material, absurd and ineffective in its total lack of use and fragility. Segantin's works are characterised by a strong empathy with the non-human and shift the subject from architecture to the unwanted landscape, represented in its constant state of becoming.
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Photos by Michela Pedranti
Giacomo Segantin
Giacomo Segantin (Abano Terme, 1995) lives and works between Milano and Colli Euganei. He studied at Accademia di Belle Arti di Verona and attended the master in Visual Arts and curatorial studies at NABA, Milano. His practice aims to deconstruct the stereotypes linked to the landscape and the identity of the territory, proposing a vision of a complex reality in constant movement.
He has taken part in several residencies and research projects including: Mustarinda, Hyrynsalmi, Finland (2023); Uncivilized Paradigms, promoted by BJCEM, curated by Alessandro Castiglioni and Simone Frangi; progettoborca, Borca di Cadore, Dolomiti Contemporanee (2020), Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice (2019). His work has been included in numerous exhibition projects, such as: We are the flood, curated by Stefano Cagol, Spazio Archeologico Sotterraneo, Trento (2022); Cantica21, production premium supported by MAECI e MiC, Canada (2021); To see, to know, to play, curated by Eleonora Reffo, Villa Borromeo, Fontaniva (2020); 51zero, International Moving Image and Contemporary Art Festival, Rochester/Canterbury, UK (2019). In 2024 Segantin’s work enters the collection of MuSe Museo delle Scienze di Trento thanks to PAC (Piano Arte Contemporanea, edizione 2023).