Gianni Dessì and Gianni Politi exhibitions in Rome explore abstraction's political and historical roots

Gianni Dessì's solo exhibition 'Dentro e Fuori' at Fondazione Pastificio Cerere in Rome's San Lorenzo neighborhood features the ceramic work 'Lucciola' from 2012. This piece, depicting hands with a small opening emitting intermittent light, references Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1975 essay about disappearing fireflies as a metaphor for political abstraction. Dessì's show is the first in the 'Sei di Nostri' cycle marking the foundation's tenth anniversary and the building's 110th year as a postwar artist studio complex. The San Lorenzo district, home to Sapienza University's psychology faculty, maintains Rome's chaotic character amid gentrification pressures. Concurrently, Gianni Politi exhibited 18 paintings at GNAM (Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome) in 'Tra Queste Sale (Malandrino)', placing his collaged painted papers alongside 19th-century Italian works. This juxtaposition revealed abstraction's presence in pre-abstract movements, with Politi's marks echoing realist painters like Giuseppe Abbati. The exhibition demonstrated how realist landscapes dissolve into abstract strokes upon close inspection. Politi, who visited GNAM as a child with his father, represents contemporary abstract painters engaging with painting's historical continuum. Critics have dismissed current abstraction as 'crapstraction', but these Rome exhibitions suggest it responds rationally to increasingly abstract social and work relations. The article originally appeared in ArtReview's April 2015 issue.