Luca Staccioli at ArtNoble Gallery

Artist: Luca Staccioli

Exhibition title: Wake-up call

Venue: ArtNoble Gallery, Milan, Italy

Date: January 26 – March 9, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and ArtNoble Gallery, Milan

ArtNoble gallery is pleased to present Wake-up call, a solo exhibition by Luca Staccioli accompanied by a critical text written by Irene Sofia Comi.

Wake-up call transforms the gallery space into a place of play and re-imagination. The dialogue between the artist and his child ‘alter ego’ acts as a centrifuge: leisure and recrea-tion, productivity and work, places and dreams mingle and intertwine, offering the visitor unexpected critical perspectives.

Toy-sculptures depicting shopping trolleys are scattered on the ground to form an aliena-ting playground, remains of a playtime that, instead of being a spontaneous and carefree construction of identity, is actually eroded by consumption. The series ‘Checkout’, in fact, reformulates the hyper-present and hyper-fast icon of online shopping that becomes a fetish, as fetishised are the goods it contains. The trolleys thus appear both as a votive ruin and as precious material with which childhood trains for adulthood: a gymnasium of homologising consumption and productivity.

On the wall, can be found the photographic series Familiar Stories (returns), which immortalises maquettes of domestic places reconstructed in play-doh and inhabited by paper figures from archival photographs of prisoners, redrawn and shaped. The anonymous characters are decontextualised, their unspoken origins externalising History and its oppressive presence. The artist imagines a child who, browsing through family albums, finds figures of war and violence and turns them into object-actors in his game. The instant of the game, stopped by the photographic shot, reveals the nightmares hidden in everyday life, the theatricalisation of intimate places in social networks and our being puppets of a play already written. In dialogue, also on the wall, drawings from the series Studio per una protesta: cieli in which prisoners and everyday memories free themselves, dive, and dance together, opening up the imagination of new possibilities.

Entering deeper into the space of the gallery, one finally finds oneself in front of ‘Castello (di sabbia?)’, an installation made of ceramics that recalls the bas-reliefs of antiquity, decorative greeks, metopes and columns. Instead of battles, heroic deeds and moments of bucolic life, however, the work depicts busy streets, car parks, supermarkets, offices and aseptic domestic places, stripped of all human presence. A collection of false myths characteristic of the present, thus composing the turrets, parapets and loopholes of a dream castle, a projection of future beauty and prosperity but also of limitations and constraints.

And suddenly, Wake-up call! Do we still feel free? The sound of bells fills the gallery, a call to arms that awakens us and urges us to transform the reality in which we are immersed?

Luca Staccioli, Wake-up call, 2023, exhibition view, ArtNoble Gallery, Milan, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Familiar stories (ritorni), culla (2022), FineArt Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta mounted on dibond, glazed ceramic, 111 x 94 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Familiar stories (ritorni), bagno (2022), FineArt Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta mounted on dibond, glazed ceramic, 82 x 83 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Familiar stories (ritorni), sala da pranzo (2022), FineArt Giclée print on Hah-nemühle Photo Rag Baryta mounted on dibond, glazed ceramic, 88 x 135 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Familiar stories (ritorni), camera da letto (2022), FineArt Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta mounted on dibond, 75 x 83 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Familiar stories (ritorni), studiolo (2022), FineArt Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta mounted on dibond, 83 x 83.5 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Castello (di sabbia?) (2023), Glazed ceramics, acrylic, anti-pigeon spikes, wool, key ring, 250 x 300 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Cameretta (2023), Glazed ceramic, 48 x 34 x 5 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Supermercato #2 (2023), Glazed ceramic, 33 x 46 x 5 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Lavanderia (2023), Glazed ceramic, 33 x 42 x 4 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Traffico #3 (2023), Glazed ceramic, 34 x 45 x 3 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Way out (2023), Plywood, wooden door knockers, candlestick holders for cakes, non-toxic resin, pigments, plexiglass, wool, cotton thread for embroidery, aluminium grid, anti-pigeon spikes and lights, 50 x 52.5 x 16 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Checkout #4 (2022), Glazed ceramic, 27.5 x 32 x 22.5 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Checkout #19 (2022), Glazed ceramic, 22 x 28 x 18 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Checkout #20 (2022), Glazed ceramic, 10.5 x 13 x 8.5 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Checkout #28 (2022), Glazed ceramic, 15 x 17.5 x 11cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Checkout #29 (2022), Glazed ceramic, 39.5 x 48 x 32 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Checkout, p#1 (2022), Alloy of zinc, tin and lead, 20 x 18 x 11.5cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Checkout, ricreazione, #1 (2021), Glazed ceramic, 15 x 17.5 x 12cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Checkout, ricreazione, #2 (2021), Glazed ceramic, 26 x 30 x 36cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Checkout, ricreazione, #3 (2021), Engobbio and acrylic, 41 x 50.5 x 33 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Checkout, ricreazione, #4 (2021), Ceramic, 24 x 45 x 28.5cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Memory #2 (2023), Felt-tip pen on paper, 36 x 45cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Studio per una protesta, #2 (2022), Pastel on paper and collage, 48 x 53cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Studio per una protesta, cielo #1 (2022), Pastel on paper and collage, 64 x 53 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Studio per una protesta, cielo #2 (2022), Pastel on paper and collage, 83.5 x 70 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Studio per una protesta, cielo #3 (2022), Pastel on paper and collage, 64 x 53 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Studio per una protesta, cielo #4 (2022), Pastel on paper and plastic number for cakes, 36 x 45 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela Pedranti

Luca Staccioli, Studio per una protesta, cielo #6 (2022), Pastel on paper and collage, 48 x 53 cm, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela

Luca Staccioli, Reality Check (2023), Electric wire, brass bells and ceramic, Variable Dimensions, courtesy the artist and ArtNoble gallery, Photo: Michela