The five large, brightly colored masks in Patrick Tuttofuoco’s latest exhibition look like props from a science-fiction film. Made of cloth and resin, these ghostly sculptures quickly impose their presence. Consider, for instance, Adiabene (Blue), 2014, which is installed near the entrance to the show, frightening or welcoming visitors. Two more masks are installed off-site, in a McDonald’s in the Piazza del Duomo and in the studio of the collector Ermanno Previdi. The spatial transfer has resulted in the presence of two apparently incongruous objects in the rooms of Galleria Guenzani: a fetish/statue of Ronald McDonald (from that local fast-food spot) and a motorcycle that belongs to Previdi. The latter is, in my opinion, a quotation of a well-known work by Tuttofuoco, his 2000 video Otto, the protagonist of which is, in fact, a scooter designed by the artist along with his cousin and a group of adolescents.
Reading the press release for the show, one learns that the sixteenth-century faces sculpted on the facade of the Casa degli Omenoni in Milan inspired Tuttofuoco’s masks. A more careful viewing of the exhibition then leads one to believe that the entire installation is a tribute to Milan, the city where the artist was born, educated, and which he says he often thinks about—although he has lived happily in Berlin for some years now.
Translated from Italian by Marguerite Shore.
