Gallery Diary - VIN VIN in Naples | Giorgia Garzilli

The view of the world is unoriginally in most cases narrated linearly as the interplay of expectation and perception. Giorgia Garzilli challenges this common belief system suggesting a more simultaneous attempt of diagnosing the coexisting versions of the given and the possible, thus constructing systems that appear a bit absurd to the eye at first. But then one starts thinking – isn’t this just the way the world spins – things always happen simultaneously in a variety one does not grasp being limited to the senses of one single body. How could those limits be overcome?


Giorgia Garzilli broadens the restrictions of seeing in offering contradicting, yet surprisingly complementing perspectives in convincing detail and open narrations. The solo show of the Naples born artist is the first to be seen in the Italian satellite of the Vienna based gallery VIN VIN. Everything here is hybrid. The circumstances as well as the details on view. Not only the body parts and animal figures that become evident in Garzillis figuration, but also everything in between that oscillates between representation and alienation.

Fiction and the everyday work together creating an atmosphere of possibility in Garzillis yet small, but conclusive oeuvre – just recently one of her paintings was included into the collection of the MACRO in Rome. Surrealism teams up with stylistic hints of New Objectivity. A certain tactile longing and the immediacy of a photo snapshot can not be denied. All the works on display at VIN VIN were created in one thought. We encounter one setting in different views, upside down and bottom up – all without hierarchy and having overcome the rules of gravity. But its not only the motifs that intrigue – Giorgia Garzilli takes them intuitively from her everyday as well as her fascination for the artificial – it is also the painterly quality in matt oil. Her painting is rhythmized in bold fields interspersed with graphic qualities. Muted colors give a hint of a magical world, one that is not too predictable. Coming from film, Garzillis narratives are scenographic and multidimensional. It comes as no surprise that there is a sound layer integrated into the show, even so the individual paintings would not need further comments, they come from ‘a gut feeling’. So does the audio track, that records the artists belly. The title of the audio piece refers to the song “Bésame mucho”. The voice in the stomach amplified, ideas digesting.

Installation view, VIN VIN in Naples, Giorgia Garzilli, La scimmia nel bicchiere © Danilo Donzelli Photography

Like the idea of kissing which the composer of the lyrics by the time of writing had not even experienced yet. There is a lot to digest here. Even though composed in a closed series, the canvases also work perfectly one by one. The smallest one being only 4 x 8 Centimeter the largest reaching a full 190 x 280 Centimeter, the play with focus and distance gives a certain beat to the show. “La scimmia nel bicchiere”, the title of the exhibition which can be translated to “The monkey in the glass” not only refers to the alternative expression “monkey” (on the back) for a person suffering from addiction but like everything here, reaches further. “While you have every right to wonder what a monkey is doing in a glass or how it got there in the first place, in this case you might accept that sometimes, things just happen. The more you try to find a reason, the stranger the world becomes”, Piero Golia writes in the text accompanying the show. And rightfully so, Giorgia Garzillis works are enjoyed most without context or reference, without noting the edges of the canvas and the limits of imagination. While precise in painterly technique and on point in contemporary taste, the narration openly and vividly embraces the absurd – but, to quote Albert Camus, “the absurd is the essential concept and the first truth”.

Installation view, VIN VIN in Naples, Giorgia Garzilli, La scimmia nel bicchiere © Danilo Donzelli Photography

VIN VIN in Naples

Vicoletto II Santa Maria ad Avignone 3, 80139 Napoli ·
NA
Italien

La scimmia nel bicchiere

bis 16. April 2022