Galleria Tiziana Di Caro hosts the fourth exhibition in its spaces by Maxime Rossi (Paris, 1980), entitled A cosmos beneath the nail, which opens on Saturday 28 October 2023 from 7pm to 9.30pm.

The aptitude to work on the space and the consequent alteration of perception has characterized all the projects that Rossi has created up to now.

The exhibition includes a series of new, previously unseen sculptural works, installations, and a series of silkscreens.

The sculptures to be exhibited in the gallery space arise from the discovery of a set of male and female molds that were once used in the production of mechanical parts. Rossi presents a collection of thirty-three interconnected objects, each adorned with a vibrant aluminum hair foil surface. While some of these objects bear familiar shapes, the story of their production, such as the now-defunct iron foundry to which they belonged, has faded. Their original purpose remains enigmatic, almost like a virtual presence. They resemble enlarged wooden toys, evoking a mechanical planetarium, futurista ballets, or crop circles. This series of sculptures consists of elements that possess the geometry of solids, yet they are simultaneously unsettling due to their satin sentimental patina in shades of pink champagne, golden hour yellow, man eater magenta, purple stars, neon green, badass and badelicious blue, strawberry red or back in black, all of which harken back to their original colors and evoke a sense of nostalgic connection to petroleum-based fetish finish. The introduction of aluminum used for surfacing the artworks, also raises questions regarding the energetic tensions that shape our epoch.

The distribution of these elements within certain sections of the exhibition can be perceived in two distinct manners. In the daytime, you can witness the sculptures, reminiscent of celestial bodies such as suns, moons, and multifaceted constellations, in their most bright, coloured materiality. From dusk, some of these elements glow up under black lights and bear witness to a shift in perspective, juxtaposing primary feeling to the sensory exploration of the surrounding space by our bodies. 

A group of works will be arranged and interconnected using fluorescent strings, forming compositions that can be seen as four-dimensional manifestations of their basic solid shapes. Through this 'transparent collage' operation, Rossi transforms the interaction between the viewer and the space into an an expandable and volatile visual field, where the form and substance of the sculptures gradually dissolve.

Three UV-reactive silkscreen prints will also be energized by the black lights, emitting a strange radiance. Each of them frames the evolution of Phantom Orchid, an albino plant in perpetual evolution to avoid the sun. Maxime Rossi drew inspiration from the imaginative descriptions created by Vladimir Nabokov for the cover of his novel, "Ada." However, Rossi's interpretation defies simple categorization as a naturalistic representation. These prints delve into the heterogeneous metamorphosis of the plant, a clone spanning from its physical manifestation to its digital solarization rendering, resonating with the dialectic of matrices, both positive and negative, found in the sculptures.

Maxime Rossi's practice has been definitively chameleonic and subversive, as he continues to create unexpected experiences that involve both the individual spectator and the community at the same time, in a shift of perspectives.