The final exhibition of 2023, continuing until March 2024 in the nave of the Nuova Sant’Agnese, is dedicated to Esther Stocker. This solo exhibition introduces the audience to a new collection of artworks displayed on the walls and throughout the space, creating an immersive environment animated solely by the viewer.

Compared to the early works of the Italian-Austrian artist, these pieces date back to the early 2000s and are characterised by references to Constructivism, Op Art, and the psychology of perception. These references are shared and further substantiated by international research conducted in the 1960s, with significant influence on major exhibitions. Stocker’s sculptures, often presented in volumes of varying size and extension, can be placed on the floor, mounted on the wall, or suspended, effectively forming environmental installations. In contrast, in the large canvases with a black background, the dynamism of the geometric fragments recalls the vertigo generated by the cosmic depth in the ambivalence of an explosive and implosive process of matter.

Each geometrically regular component, as well as the orthogonal grid itself, which is a quintessential compositional principle based on regularity and repetition, undergo a process of formal deconstruction, leading to their disarticulation, compression, and the generation of offsets and plane slippage. However, they do not completely deny their organised origins. This results in a scenario where conceptual virtuality and physical concreteness coexist and intersect, leaving the visitor wandering in a state of surprise and disorientation, as if in a dream of paradoxical precision. Both these elements, sculptures and canvases, constitute the exhibition proposal in the Nave of the Nuova Sant’Agnese, creating a scenario, not virtual, where spectators meander as if in a dream of paradoxical precision.

Alberta Pane Gallery
Photos: Ugo Carmeni
Photos: Markus Gradwohl

Exhibition, Warps of rationality