Gianni Ferrero Merlino

Giorgio Galotti is thrilled to present the first solo show by Gianni Ferrero Merlino hosted by the gallery.

The entire project arises from the will to use architectural laws as a medium to be in touch with the memory, starting from Aldo Rossi’s thinking who observed the private person’s condition as the only one useful to create buildings. The series presented in the exhibition is therefore based on a dialogue with the Rossi’s monument to Sandro Pertini (Milan 1988-1990). The work is considered both a theater and a meeting place, consisting of a large staircase ending with a square very similar to a theater stage. The fact that this stage is behind the “public” sitting, makes it a space where thoughts are conveyed, a mystical and almost unreal place where, what has been thought and what has been remembered, they recite together. The architectural work consists of the reiteration of a form, a code, an element that emphasizes the theatrical component. Through these features, Rossi’s architectural ideas are clearly manifested, making this construction the starting point for recomposing memory through exercise and repetition. 

In the “Project of Villa with Interior” the medium used is the photosensitive material as a recording element, the object of investigation is the memory, here understood as a fragment of a construction. Photographic work therefore becomes only a way to bring back the structural tension of this monument, a reinterpretation stimulating inner constructive action and leading to the discovery of a new condition, invisible to the eyes. As if, by studying and repeating a gesture, the memory could be fixed so permanently that it could be seen in front of itself. The whole set of works are considered to be designed through the lens of the camera, the touch taken by adding or subtracting further geometric shapes into the darkroom, a process that allows the memory to reach the interior to overlap it with reality.

Giorgio Galotti (press release)