Redefining Space | NFT Exhibition

Last May, Cortesi Gallery and its new branch C-VERSO took an important step into the NFTs world. The Lugano space hosted its first exhibition entirely dedicated to Digital Art. 

This first approach was specifically designed to bring traditional art enthusiasts closer to the virtual world by selecting three innovative and contemporary artists working with sculpture, print, video and virtual reality through NFTs.

The exhibition aimed to turn our gaze to the present art and establish an exciting dialogue between classic and contemporary. The artworks exhibited renew the traditional concept of space anchored to the world's physical and material dimension, extending it beyond itself into the virtual sphere of nowadays—the mythology of a new dimension from material to digital, from classic to hyper contemporary. The notions of universe, multiverse and Metaverse arise as anthropocentric concepts aimed to overlap the limits of movement and the existence in space, allowing us to glimpse a new layer of reality.

(installation view of Leo Caillard's Artworks)

One of the Artists on show was Leo Caillard (Paris, 1985). His artistic practice plays with the contrast between classicism and modernism, taking the notion of time as a starting point. In his artworks, the myths of ancient Greece relive acquiring a new meaning. The artist interprets classical mythology as a metaphor of the present, which could permit rethinking the future of art. Thanks to the anachronistic juxtaposition of classical figures with XXI century objects and atmospheres, the artist frees art from its finiteness, gathering past and present in a circular temporality that makes it possible to exchange the real and the virtual world.

(installation view of Emanuele Dascanio's Artwork)

Emanuele Dascanio (Garbagnate Milanese, 1983) is the most conventional artist because he uses the traditional technique of drawing – the chiaroscuro - as the reference point for his NFTs. He presents images populated by striking figures belonging to the religious world; they are represented in a hyperrealistic way, immersed in a classical atmosphere made even more dramatic through black and white contrast. Art history is turned into a fantastic reality; the finitude of the human being is expressed and denied through the transformation of forms into infinite characters, together with movement and sound. 

(installation view of Matteo Mauro's Artworks)

Matteo Mauro (Catania, 1992) intuits the infinite expansion possibilities of space, focusing his attention on the concept of volume, which is central both in his sculptures and in his NFTs. In the first case, the artist negatively highlights space, using voids that stand out with different materials in contrast with the cubic volumes. On the other hand, in digital artworks, the environmental dimension is prominent; the artist reinvents space following a baroque inspiration that takes possession of every available centimetre, expanding until the virtual world. Here anthropomorphic volumes merge with details inspired by the four natural elements, creating a new universe: the Metaverse.