In “Passaggi” the artist investigates man’s need – be he a single individual or an entire community, – to travel over the earth, questioning how this freedom comes into conflict in contemporary reality with geopolitical interests, state bureaucratic apparatuses and reactionary ideologies.
Inside the gallery, large iron girders impose themselves with hostile authority, delimiting the physical space and evoking an imagery of war. Barely suggested, in their austerity and incompleteness they symbolise the spirit with which nations deal with the phenomenon of migration: an effort sufficient to hinder but far removed from concrete solutions.
In the exhibition, the sculptures establish a dialogue with large canvases studded with invisible and silent painting, inhabited by swarms of tiny mosquitoes, “insects that populate an ideal space, suggesting a transit that, in the apparent miniature of the dimensional scale, hides the gigantic dramatic scope of a phenomenon that, inexorably marks the fate of many people and corrodes consciences.” (Agata Polizzi).
In “Drifting back and forth” (“Avanti e indietro, alla deriva”), Lana explores the different natures of migratory processes and their management, recognising how the attempt to stem the phenomenon is often characterised by short-sighted and ineffective policies, in a succession of repetitive and unproductive actions that not only fail to respond to the need to find safe places in which to live, but reduce the movement of the masses to a real struggle for survival.
About Giuseppe Lana
Born in Catania in 1979. Lives and works between London and Catania. Among his recent shows: in 2023 PASSAGGI, Italian Cultural Institute, Madrid; in 2020 “L’aureola nelle cose: sentire l’habitat”, 71° Premio Fondazione Michetti; in 2019 “Über Mauer”, BAM – Biennale Arcipelago Mediterraneo, Palermo, curated by Fondazione Merz, “Preservation is an act of political warfare”, Durrmu Arts Aboriginal Corporation, Peppimenarti, Australia – partners: The University of Melbourne, Italia Institute of Culture Melbourne, Italian Institute of Culture Sydney, CO.AS.IT Language and Cultural Centre Melbourne, Durrmu Arts Aboriginal Corporation, curated by Miriam La Rosa and Kade McDonald; in 2018 “Square”, Official Collateral Event of MANIFESTA12, Palermo, curated by Mike Watson.
For more information, please visit https://www.giorgiopersano.org/
