Danilo Sini's Postmodern Punk Retrospective at Exmà, Cagliari

Danilo Sini (b. 1961, Sassari) presents 'Al Limite Del Ƨenso' at Exmà, Cagliari's Centro Comunale di Arte e Cultura, featuring 50 works spanning decades of his postmodern, punk-inflected research. The exhibition includes an acquasantiera with sparkling water marked 'VDUMMD' (phonetic for 'The day when Mickey Mouse died'), unsettling knife-wielding plush rabbits, a rocking electric chair, a private chapel with 'communist red' walls, a fur-covered crucifix, and Mao's little red book replacing the Bible. Pop decorative interventions appear in television-sculptures projecting mass culture symbols like the Statue of Liberty and Andy Warhol, voiding their meaning. Sini's work explores emptiness and nihilism, using hollowed symbols and archetypes. Materials range from earth and asphalt (reminiscent of Arte Povera and graffiti) to traditional Sardinian basketry. The series 'Situazioni' (1996) features fantastic creatures, knights, cardinals, demons, and ambiguous angels on stilettos with flicking tongues, symbolizing complicity between good and evil. Paintings made with lipstick and charcoal, alongside 'Cattivibambinipentiti' and 'Bambinitopolini' in oil and charcoal, indicate identity precariousness, drawn from old photographs of real people depicting innocent yet betrayed humanity prone to violence. Sini was guitarist for the early-1980s punk band P.S.A., worked as a tattoo artist, and contributed to numerous magazines.