Giorgio Andreotta Calò Transforms HangarBicocca into an Underwater Landscape

Giorgio Andreotta Calò (Venice, 1979) presents 'CITTÀDIMILANO' at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, curated by Roberta Tenconi. The exhibition, open since 2019, diverges from the spectacular installation he created for the Italian Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, offering instead a research-oriented, less scenographic project. The title references the 'Città di Milano,' the first Italian cable-laying ship that ran aground off Filicudi in 1919. The show is illuminated by natural light from the skylights of the Shed, causing perception to vary with time and weather. Works include the overturned hull sculpture 'Volver,' hourglass-like wooden and bronze sculptures, the 'Meduse' series, and 'Pinna Nobilis' attached to pillars like parasitic extensions. The floor is dominated by new core-sample sculptures. A large projection, 'Senza titolo (Jona)' (2019), shows images of the sunken wreck, contrasted by a section of cable twisting in space. Opposite hangs the monumental 'Città di Milano' (2019), a pinhole photograph of Milan taken from the Pirellone skyscraper, using one of its floors as a camera obscura to expose over ten meters of photographic paper. The 16mm film 'In girum imus nocte' (2016) is a dark, poetic video with intermittent lights flickering in the darkness. The exhibition's strength lies in its investigation of matter, treatments reminiscent of underwater environments, and observation of strata and temporal passages, rather than didactic narrative.