“New Tribal Labyrinth” was the latest chapter in Atelier Van Lieshout’s ongoing saga about a world destined to regress to small social groups dominated by a primordial struggle for survival. And yet at first glance, the sixteen new works shown in Milan—both large and small sculptures—didn’t convey this theme; one might have thought this was simply an exhibition of biomorphic abstract sculpture. In The Farm (all works 2011), vaguely organic forms made from foam, rice paper, and fiberglass seem to issue directly from the spatial play between solid and void à la Henry Moore or Isamu

Entering the gallery, one came across a series of three-dimensional collages, assemblages of found furniture, dismantled and reassembled lamps, old majolica, glassware, and memorabilia of the recent past, including gadgets and posters. Flavio Favelli drew upon an extensive range of materials for this solo show, but most common were home furnishings identifiable as belonging to a style widespread in Italy from the latter half of the 1920s to the late ’40s and still present in the homes of Italian grandmothers at least through the 1970s. The style is known as Novecento—twentieth century—because