Zeno X is proud to announce the first solo exhibition of Pietro Roccasalva (b. 1970, Modica). The Italian artist grew up in Sicily but has been living and working in Milan for a long time. Roccasalva sees himself mainly as a painter, yet he has also produced installations, sculptures, performances and films. The internal logic of his oeuvre is such that working cross-media becomes an almost unavoidable given for the artist. Every work refers to a previous work, but also contains a seed for future pieces. All of his works are both formally autonomous and part of a larger whole. The work of Roccasalva cannot be understood as a linear and chronological sequence but rather as a huge hall with mirrors. The whole functions as a simulacrum of sorts: a reflection, a representation; it shows similarities to an existing image but is still unique. But then where is the original or its origin? Is it to be found in reality or does it only exist in an imaginary intermediate zone? Time and space are determining factors in this respect, even if they reveal little more. Roccasalva is specifically attracted to the time that exists between time, which he describes as a void, yet one with a particular potentiality. Roccasalva’s thinking about time is especially grounded in Fernando Pessoa’s (1888-1935) ‘Book of Restlessness’. This Portuguese poet and philosopher writes about a time that he describes as ‘nostalgia for what never was’. Roccasalva plays with many paradoxes, including the idea that oneness can be formed in emptiness, or that the sum of all equals emptiness.

Roccasalva is a well-read artist with keen interests in literature, philosophy, art history and etymology. As an Italian artist, he can obviously not ignore the legacy of the Christian art tradition, which leads him to Russian icon art and the reverse perspective, as manifested in the elaboration of the estranging image of ‘Il Traviatore’.

The exhibition ‘The Queen of Gaps’, whose title is derived from the poem ‘The King of Gaps’ by Pessoa, consists of one sculpture and five paintings. It is a first step toward a new pictorial iconography. Study from Just Married Machine I, II and III (2014) depict a scene of an installation and tableau vivant that Pietro Rocca Salva created in 2012 in the frame of his solo exhibition ‘The Strange Young Neighbours’. The work was based on a still from the short film ‘La Ricotta’ (1962) by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975). Roccasalva translated a traditional ‘nature morte’ from the movie into real-life objects; a bowl is transformed into a mandolin-shaped boat, a basket into a hot air balloon, split garlic bulbs fit together to form a bizarre toilet and a bottle is reinterpreted as a woman. The eggs at the banquet are exchanged for a cock that keeps watch over the whole scene. The genre of the still life takes on a new meaning in the world of living things. The still life Study for Just Married Machine II brings together a cup and a traditional Italian ‘rosetta’ bread. The two dialoguing objects are linked to each through their matching concave and convex shapes, a contrast that is associated with the male and female element. The two large paintings focus on the male and female characters in the film and the tableau vivant, the married couple, while the third painting depicts the whole scene.

The painting Il Traviatore (2014) is part of a series that has a waiter carrying a juicer on an empty tray as its central theme. This figure is a metaphor for the messenger of emptiness. The character first appeared in 2002 in a tableau vivant realised during an exhibition at the Fondazione Ratti in Como. This full-length painted Il Traviatore (2014) refers to Jean-Antoine Watteau’s painting Gilles (1718-1719), a portrait of a character from the sixteenth-century Italian Commedia dell’arte: ‘Pedrolino’ or little Pietro. Pietro is also a derivative of the Italian word for stone, and can here be seen as a case of reverse transubstantiation.

The sculpture Fanfaro (2014) depicts a dragon lizard holding an ‘arancino’, an Italian fried stuffed rice ball, while a child is biting its tail. The scene evokes a wide range of associations and references, from Duchamp to Caravaggio with his ‘Boy Bitten By Lizard’, from Bernini’s sculpture ‘Child with Dragon’ to the typical Chinese dragon with sun. A large arancino and a real dragon lizard appeared for the first time together in the exhibition ‘De Morgen’ in 2006. If the arancino seems to refer to the dead sun – as has often been the case in earlier works by Roccasalva – and the lizard to prehistoric times, then the biting child can be seen as a metaphor for ‘nostalgia for what never was’, an impossible temporal dimension.

Pietro Roccasalva has had solo exhibitions at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (DE), Le Magasin, Grenoble (FR), GAMeC, Bergamo (IT) and the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice (IT). His work was part of group exhibitions at, among others, the David Roberts Art Foundation, London (GB), the Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, MoMA PS1, New York (USA), Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (SE), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (USA), MAXXI, Rome (IT), Kadist Art Foundation, Paris (FR) and S.M.A.K., Ghent (BE). He was invited to participate in the Biennale of Venice (2009), the Torino Triennial (2008), Manifesta 7 and the Prague Biennial (2007). MoMA in New York recently acquired one of his installations for its collection.