NICOLÒ CECCHELLA.

La continuazione degli occhi

curated by Andrea Tinterri and Luca Zuccala

Artcurial, Milan

11 January – 2 February 2024

On Thursday 11 January 2024 at 6.30 p.m. at the Italian branch of Artcurial in Corso Venezia 22 in Milan, La continuazione degli occhi, an exhibition by Nicolò Cecchella, curated by Andrea Tinterri and Luca Zuccala, will be inauguratedThe solo exhibition presents the fundamental themes of the artist’s research through a corpus of works that question the concepts of space, time, and light, placing them in direct relation with the body, the gaze, and matter.
The selection of works in the exhibition addresses the central question that accompanies Cecchella’s path: how is the visible, what we see, able to transform not only our perception of reality but reality itself? How does our body and that of the beholder stand in relation to the transformative power of the objects of vision? And finally: what (are) we left with the vision itself?
Through an itinerary of works that alternate precious and ancient materials with organic and earthy ones to chemical and synthetic ones that take shape through apparently distant techniques (sculpture, photography, video, drawing), Cecchella provides his personal answer to these questions.

An answer that, of course, cannot be unambiguous but inevitably ‘open’, exposed to continuous changes in the perspective of observation, thus generating a process of assimilation and overcoming that can only provoke and transform the eye of the beholder, reconfiguring the perspective of vision.
As stated by the author: “From a given point forward, we are. And with this being, totally exposed, we enter into contact and relationship.”
As Andrea Cortellessa writes in the text Eyes Wide Shut, included in the exhibition catalogue, in reference to the video work Only with Eyes: “(…) the invisible movements of that shiny, curved surface, under the warm, caressing skin, tell us that the artist’s eye is alive. And that then, in all probability, so is ours. Nicolò Cecchella’s eyes, we have seen, do not stay closed all the time. If it was seen, however, it is because ours did not stay closed either.’
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication printed in 100 copies with critical texts by Andrea Cortellessa, Chiara Protesine, Victor I. Stoichita, Mauro Zanchi and a conversation between the artist and Andrea Tinterri.