Plastiche apparenze: from Plumcake to Gianni Cella
10 May 2023When one enters a gallery or a museum one often moves with circumspection, almost with fear, frightened at the idea of being summoned by a guardian in a plastic chair or terrified by the sound of an alarm because one gets too close to observe a work.
The works of Gianni Cella, plastic appearances, as the title of the exhibition on view at the Fondazione Stelline in Milan suggests, seem instead to invite the observer to approach, interact, browse. In their apparent restlessness and silent fixity, they communicate simple and immediate messages to us, breaking up the environment of the ivory tower in which contemporary art often finds itself stuck.
And to completely break this feeling of a sacred and untouchable place there are the testimonies of insiders. Works of art are first of all objects that somehow have to get there in the exhibition space, someone must have transported, mounted, hung, moved them.
It is through Marco Mignani's storytelling through images that today it is possible to tell the public how an exhibition is born and perhaps even break the magic and elicit a smile.
Anyone who has had the opportunity to visit the exhibition will have wondered how the plaster outline of the work Ex aequo (2005) was traced: nothing could be simpler, Gianni Cella lay down on the ground, like a dead man, while Corrado Bonomi outlined the contours.
Corrado Bonomi drawing the outline of Gianni Cella - Photo Marco Mignani
Gianni Cella who plays the "dead man" for the creation of the Ex aequo template - Photo Marco Mignani
Corrado Bonomi and Gianni Cella while they refine the shape and add the numbers for the hopscotch game - Photo Marco Mignani
In order to be installed, Orologio di Lombroso (2011) required precise preparation, creating a perfect circular base in order to arrange the hands and small heads on the wall. It was not possible to directly invite the master Giotto to draw a perfect circle, not even the Vitruvian man was available, so a nail, a pencil and a rope were used, in the old fashioned way. However, the problem of how to erase the pencil traces remained, again, a very easy solution: a polite word at the desk and the kind girls in the foyer lent us an eraser.
Corrado Bonomi intent on tracing the circular base for the Orologio di Lombroso - Photo Marco Mignani
Corrado Bonomi and Gianni Cella while "unpacking" the little heads of the Orologio di Lombroso - Photo Marco Mignani
Gianni Cella ready to skewer Corrado Bonomi with the knife-hands of the Orologio di Lombroso - Photo Marco Mignani
The installation of the Ex voto (2003 - in progress) is not for maniacs of order or symmetry. The composition created to nail Cella's small paintings to the wall is neither studied nor calculated, just a bag of nails and a hammer and the artist who "sentimentally" covers the wall. In a certain sense, this installation is almost a performance, the very act of spontaneously hanging so many votive pictures on the wall was supposed to recreate the effect of the walls of churches covered with ex votos, gifts and icons, added over the centuries without no upstream programming.
Marianna Cappia and Gianni Cella during the preparation of the Ex voto paintings - Photo Marco Mignani
Gianni Cella finishing the installation of the Ex voto - Photo Marco Mignani
Two steps back, one eye closed and a bricklayer's yardstick and also the aliens from Caos primigenio (2018 - in progress) take their places on the wall, the shelves are fixed and the works are placed on them, the little blue monsters from Lo Spirito del lago (2015 - 2016) come out of their packaging and settle on the ground in search of the best composition.
Corrado Bonomi during the installation of Lo spirito del Lago - Photo Marco Mignani
Alberto Fiz and Gianni Cella intent on studying the composition for the Caos primigenio - Photo Marco Mignani
Corrado Bonomi and Gianni Cella discuss about the Caos primigenio - Photo Marco Mignani
Corrado Bonomi, Gianni Cella and Alberto Fiz during the assembly of Van Gogh's Rebus - Photo Marco Mignani
Marianna Cappia and Corrado Bonomi take the measurements to fix the shelves - Photo Marco Mignani
Gianni Cella playing with the shelves - Photo Marco Mignani
The satisfaction and the smile at the end of the work arise after days, even weeks, of organization, phone calls, changes of plans, unexpected events. Setting up an exhibition is part of the creative work but behind the imagination of the artist and the ideas of the curator there is always a great team of people who make it possible to open it to the public.
The Fondazione Stelline has offered us a freely malleable, flexible space, a blank canvas on which to paint and an exceptional support for which we thank you wholeheartedly.
Gianni Cella in the Magnolia Cloister of the Fondazione Stelline among the works of the outdoor installation (from left to right): Personalità multiple, Amici immaginari, Fratelli Marx - Photo Marco Mignani
Marianna Cappia
Gianni Cella's Press Office
