Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Barbara De Vivi’s first solo exhibition, Controfigura, at the Galleria Poggiali in Milan, Italy, a show accompanied by a critical essay by Lorenzo Madaro. The exhibition will be open till 14.03.2025, and the gallery is situated at Foro Buonaparte 52, easily reachable with the M1 metro line and about 400m, not even a 10’ walk.
It was a pleasant discovery, as I found a warm and friendly environment with people ready to share more details about the artist, the exhibition, and the gallery, but also, and more importantly a space, a gallery respecting its role to the art world being open to new talents, emergent artists who receive support with care to get to the next steps of their career. Keep in mind that the show accompanies the publication of a catalogue with a critical essay by Lorenzo Madaro and a conversation between the artist and Elisa Carollo.
The first sensation upon entering the exhibition space is the striking contrast in colors, tones, and atmospheres, along with the dominant presence of the female body. The artist uses fluorescent colors that seem designed to highlight the figures’ postures, even intimate ones, such as an open female body, almost a shared privacy. This intimacy is then expressed in other, darker-toned atmospheres with more complex combinations of bodily postures, creating an introverted moment, like the internal dialogues with ourselves.
In her conversation with the curator Elisa Carollo, De Vivi explains that the use of color has evolved. During a period in Germany, she moved from early dark, Venetian-inspired tones to a brighter palette, then returned to shadowy hues upon revisiting Venice. This cyclical shift reflects a deeper exploration of light, atmosphere, and the dreamlike, infernal world, where color embodies an emotional resonance.
But let’s see what this exhibition is about…
Controfigura delves into examining the concept of the double, drawing inspiration from literature and visual arts, where this theme is often used to explore the complex processes of identity formation. This new series of canvases points to two key aspects: representing others as if they were self-portraits, and the ability to perceive oneself from an external perspective as if looking at someone else.
De Vivi’s artistic process incorporates photography and self-portraiture. She guides her sister in adopting the same poses, taking selfies, and sending them to the artist. This exchange creates a dialogue that overcomes geographical separation and challenges the traditional boundaries between artist and subject, the one who sees and the one who is seen. In the exhibition Controfigura, the artist mirrors herself in something beyond herself, entrusting a part of her work, and indeed herself, to something or someone else and we follow on that path of perceiving and seeing us as we visit the exhibition.
Oil and acrylic on paper
Courtesy Galleria Poggiali Milano
To complete our immersion in De Vivi’s visual universe of intimate connections and narrations through old and contemporary visual cultures the works on canvas dialogues with a cycle of paintings on paper that the figures of the imaginary models are full of energy talking directly and profoundly to you.
The Controfigura exhibition showcases a breadth of De Vivi’s artistic work, highlighting the contrast between her large-format canvases and her smaller-dimension works on paper. Madaro describes the canvases as overlayered constructions, “a painting of apparitions and vanishings”, unlike the works on paper, which are immediate and self-sufficient, standing as finished pieces and not preparatory studies.
Who is the artist…
Barbara De Vivi, born in Venice in 1992, is a visual artist specializing in painting, currently living and working between Hamburg and Venice. A graduate of the Accademia di Belle Arti of Venice, with further studies at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, her artistic practice delves into the evolution and hybridization of images. She weaves together artistic iconography and personal experiences, creating an archive of drawings from diverse sources revealing surprising and unexpected connections. Recent highlights of her career include the inclusion of her work in the Foundation CRC collection and an exhibition at Castello di Rivoli, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Marcella Beccaria. This follows a successful exhibition, the “Flaming April Show,” at the MOM Art Center in Hamburg (2023), as well as residencies at the Pilotenkueche in Leipzig, Germany, and awards such as the Combat Prize.
And what about the gallery…
The Poggiali Gallery was born in 2016, following the Poggiali and Forconi Gallery (founded in 1984) in Florence, Italy. Currently, the gallery has three locations in Florence, Pietrasanta, and Milan promoting historized artists and young talents. In Florence, you will find historicezed artists and from previous generations, in Pietrasanta, there is a focus on sculpture projects, and last but not least the location in Milan is a more experimental space, with an international imprint, exhibiting contemporary artists.
Navigating the gallery’s website, you will meet artists like Enzo Cucchi, Luigi Ghirri, Luca Pignatelli, Erwin Wurm, Fabio Viale, Alexander Diop, Goldschmied & Chiari, Kennedy Yanko.
Visit the Poggiali Gallery’s website for more info: www.galleriapoggiali.com
And enjoy the exhibition!!!
