Jan van der Ploeg's 518th wall painting installed at Zazà Ramen in Milan

Jan van der Ploeg (Amsterdam, 1959) has created his 518th wall painting, titled Untitled, as a permanent installation at Zazà Ramen, a sake bar and restaurant on via Solferino in Milan. The work is located in the basement, opposite a glass wall overlooking the kitchens and the Leonardo da Vinci locks connecting the Naviglio Martesana to the small dock of via San Marco. This is van der Ploeg's second permanent piece at the venue, following his 2017 painting N°444, created during his solo show at Galleria Renata Fabbri. The new mural features two large 'grips' (rounded-corner rectangles), one light orange and one black, that meet to create a virtual shared space. Zazà Ramen's founder, Brendan Becht, an art collector from a family of collectors and former collaborator of Gualtiero Marchesi, has been inviting international artists to create site-specific works for seven years. The restaurant already houses three murals by David Tremlett (since 2014) and collages by Jann Haworth honoring great women in history. Van der Ploeg is known in Milan for his two solo shows at Galleria Renata Fabbri (2011, 2017) and for being in the permanent collection of Bocconi Art Gallery. In Italy, he has exhibited at Galleria Giacomo Guidi in Rome (2014), Centro Pecci (2010), and participated eight times in the international event Stazione di Topolo/Postaja Topolo in Udine.