Marcello Maloberti

Marcello Maloberti once sent me a Christmas greeting, which read: “Le formiche fanno fatica sulla neve” (“The ants struggle on the snow”). More than ten years have passed since that text message, and now, for his current solo exhibition, the Italian artist has committed many of his lightning-quick and oneiric phrases to paper. In fact, almost this entire show—which marks the opening of the gallery’s new exhibition space—is made up of words.

Inside, Maloberti has installed four pale wooden tables. Beneath each one are packages of orange soda still wrapped in plastic. On each tabletop is a ring binder containing a selection of brief writings the artist has composed since 1990. The pages contain a single thought, conveying a vision, an anecdote, and a sense of dizziness. The black stroke of Maloberti’s brush on the pages also reveals the tensions, fragilities, and contradictions that he has translated over the years into a series of physical actions, sculptural situations, and, of course, images, all characterized by a strong emotional impact and a peculiar sensibility.

Along the back wall of the gallery hangs a white-neon text work titled Non far fare alla rosa quello che la rosa non vuole fare (Don’t Force the Rose to Do That Which It Does Not Want to Do), 2014. This phrase, taken from an interview Maloberti conducted with artist Pier Paolo Calzolari, has a chameleonlike power, relaunching a relationship between text and image in Maloberti’s work (through the use of glaring neon) within a more historical dimension and at the same time declaring how all his oeuvre makes worlds through images that are difficult to describe with words. The power of this miniretrospective lies within this narrative short circuit.

Translated from Italian by Marguerite Shore.