Fiammiferai

“Light, in every aspect of its being, is related to something else, then follows a final path that leads to the possibility of losing what it is to wander into the void. This wandering is an image of an almost impossible reality” (Lo Savio).

Fuocherello is a place architecturally suspended between the earthly dimension of the foundry workshop and the remote panorama of the Alps. With eyes turned to the earth and the sky, one perceives that the room is filled with a dense light that seems to emanate a strange electricity. In this setting, where the most tangible things appear ethereal, the works of Bekhbaatar Enkhtur [Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 1994. Lives in Turin], Lorenzo Lunghi [Crema, Italy, 1993. Lives in Milan], and Giulia Poppi [Modena, Italy, 1992. Lives in Frankfurt] are naturally positioned.

“I like there to be a sensual connection with things, a physical empathy. And I am very interested in the fact that a work generates anomalous perspectives” (Poppi, Verini). The color in Caravelle by Giulia Poppi plays the role of animating the resin, making it resemble a jellyfish swimming on the water’s surface. The Portuguese man-of-war, an aquatic organism from which these works take their name, is transparent and venomous. Its fluidity immerses the gallery’s surroundings into the ocean and induces a shift in the perception of the environment. With an alchemical and climatic approach, the sculpture makes the air tangible and transforms it into water. As with the other Medusa, it petrifies a living being, freezing the charm and mystery of a mutable substance. “My sculptures dream of dancing like sea creatures and sounding like onomatopoeia. They can be rigid membranes or soft shells. Sometimes I think of the sculptures as moving images. The matter, ambiguous and genuine, can change rapidly” (Poppi). Poppi’s Caravelle can be understood as stained glass windows without architecture or structure, like painterly drapery resting on small lead feet. The peculiar dimensionality of these objects fits into a sculptural research that seeks to crudely display a breath passing through raw material, repositioning the elements of this reality into a holistic and transcendental perspective.

“If the Gothic is the drive of artifacts to transcend the matter that composes them and become vectors of metaphysical entities, cybernetics is the discipline that first recognized a form of autonomy in technological objects, independent of their human creators. In cyber-Gothic, technologies cease to be expressions of human rationality and instead transform into spells, pre-modern rituals capable of protecting us but also of conveying whispers of unknown forces” (Tripaldi). The invisible soul revealed by Lorenzo Lunghi’s devices is electric; the presence of the sculpture narrates the magnetic and technological waves traversing the space and the bodies within it. The works are placed asymmetrically within the architecture of Fuocherello, creating a satellite-like scene. Microflame (SKY, Power, Trust) is positioned high, clinging to the drywall support structure. In this assemblage, the artist deforms electrical transformers, hybridizing them with sharp metallic elements, conjuring a cosmos of sci-fi antennas and primitive spikes inspired by epic scenarios sealed by the lofty names of household appliances (Sky, Power, Trust). Below, the aluminum sculpture Microflame

(Binaural Version) attaches itself to an electrical socket in the gallery, acting as a parasitic and site-specific work. A simple mechanism hidden within the aluminum casting converts alternating current into direct current. At the tip of the object, electricity can be seen flowing, enough to light a small flame. “I use a lot of narrative, and often it is the object itself that tells the story, freeing itself in its computational and rational feeling to become extremely sensitive” (Lunghi, Boemio). In the sculptural system presented by Lunghi at Fuocherello, the devices reinterpret hyper-technological nature from a perspective of rudimentary existentialism.

“The tension towards the ephemeral and impermanence is perhaps the central characteristic of Enkhtur’s research, which, paradoxically, the more it produces, the more it tries not to leave traces” (Camprini). By spreading a layer of beeswax on the gallery wall and then scraping it away, Bekhbaatar Enkhtur aims to open a material breach in a solid surface, revealing a presence. The artist, who “accentuates the materiality of the work to create the illusion of its dematerialization” (Balbi), utilizes the capacity of visual language to trace stories that do not inhabit the material world. In Enkhtur’s work, representation is always a glimpse into a fantastic and parallel universe, summoned into this reality through dimensional portals. This is why the landscape’s drawn line aligns faintly with the real mountains, giving the illusion of a split view. Non-canonical references to his cultural visual heritage are common in Enkhtur’s practice. The drawing of Fiammiferai, preserved and evoked behind its cerulean skin, represents Erlik, the god of death in Mongolian mythology. Enkhtur depicts him lying down, placing the deity in an ambiguous and (given the subject) somewhat comical moment, between sleep and passing. So be careful not to wake him or cross the thresholds that the images reveal.

Enkhtur’s material and organic work, serving as the backdrop for the entire exhibition, confirms how the artists of Fiammiferai, who share a generation and geographic area, seek elementary and primitive connections with matter to trigger a perceptual supplement of knowledge. By manipulating the convictions of the real and the present through a new narrative of its structures—whether material, technological, or architectural—the artists explore new paths to transcendence, human depth, vitality, and fantasy. Their way of working, which I would call remote art, is essentially an operation on the perception of the present that uses the momentum of illusion to establish contact with what would otherwise be distant and unreachable. Denying the corporeality of what is tangible and rewriting its function, the artists transition the truth of real matter to a remote truth, placing the narrative on mythological, fantastical, and legendary planes—yet also true, rudimentary, playful, and essential. In this perspective, Erlik, the Portuguese man-of-war, and SKY are not just distant entities but monsters or friends we might encounter along the way. They, in fact, travel without the need for a body.

• ★  Balbi, Lorenzo. “Bekhbaatar Enkhtur.” Nuovo Forno del Pane. A Logbook. Italian and English Edition, edited by Caterina Molteni, MAMbo, 2021.
• ★  Camprini, Enrico. Imagining for Real. Exhibition text for “Bekhbaatar Enkhtur – Imagining for Real”. Rome, Galleria Materia, 2023.
• ★  Lo Savio, Francesco. Introduction, Selecta Art Gallery catalog. Rome, 1960.
• ★  Lunghi, Lorenzo, and Camilla Boemio. “HYBRIDARCHIPELAGO » Interview with Lorenzo Lunghi.” formeuniche.org,
• ★  Poppi, Giulia. “Statement.” Giulia Poppi, https://www.giuliapoppi.com/bio-giulia-poppi.
• ★  Poppi, Giulia, and Saverio Verini. “Studio visit. Word to the artist Giulia Poppi.” Artribune, 2022. Artribune,
• ★  Tripaldi, Laura. “Cyber-Gothic Oracles. A Conversation with Lorenzo Lunghi.” Flash Art, vol. #359, 2022.