Alessandro Calabrese on Anti-Authorship and Scanner Experiments at Viasaterna

Alessandro Calabrese's exhibition 'Impasse' at Galleria Viasaterna in Milan presents two series: 'The Long Thing' (2017-) upstairs and 'A Failed Entertainment' (2015) downstairs. In 'The Long Thing', Calabrese uses a scanner to manipulate office materials like folders, elastic bands, and paper clips, moving them while scanning to distort images. He also activated the scanner while cleaning it with a sponge and glass cleaner, embracing unpredictability. The artist set the scanner to automatic enhancement, often yielding results far from the original. He cites Francis Bacon as an influence for balancing abstraction and figuration. 'A Failed Entertainment', previously shown at MACRO in Rome and winner of the Premio Graziadei, uses Google Reverse Image Search to overlay his own photos of Milan with algorithmically similar images, then obscures the original photo to create a 'black hole' of references. The title references David Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest', which itself alludes to Hamlet. Calabrese describes the exhibition as a moment of liberation and catharsis regarding boredom and alienation, but also an impasse, questioning his next move after pushing anti-authorship and technological autonomy.