The time span embraced stretches over twenty years, yet the exhibition does not seek to reconstruct the artist’s recent past. Rather, the intention is to offer a glimpse into his poetic universe and the ongoing research that leads to the creation of the work—drawing from an iconographic repertoire rich with evocations, where subject and object often play a game of mutual concealment.
The works inhabit the ground floor of Assab One, creating, through their physical presence, new intellectual connections and unexpected emotional relationships. Large ceramics, small bronzes, photographs, drawings, and watercolors wink slyly at their sources of inspiration, often drawn from the world of cinema.
Extracted from their original contexts, the images and suggestions in the exhibition reveal the uniqueness of a vision that only appears fragmented—a creative autonomy that stems precisely from the absolute space each work manages to carve out for itself through expressive force. This, despite the titles and forms often playing tricks, alluding to other creative worlds—art history, literature, and, above all, cinema, a constant love over time.
The act consists in transforming the frozen image of a film frame and imprinting it with a new character. Thus, through the use of new materials, it becomes something else entirely—detached from its point of origin.
Where is The Liquid Princess headed? What wall is she crossing? Is she fleeing something? Knowing that her silhouette is taken from Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette does not solve the mystery.
Rich Bitch – everything is relative… presents Vincenzo Cabiati’s artistic research from a diachronic perspective. Though diverse in formal outcomes, the works share a common soul: the seductive power of the imago which, once embedded in the retina, stimulates the imagination and generates visions. A testament to how the artist may either confirm or subvert his sources in the passage toward artistic representation.
