In pinball (also known in Italy as pinball), the aim of the game is to prevent the steel ball from falling by hitting it with the “fins” placed at the base of the inclined plane, which illustrates a map containing graphic elements, often three-dimensional, which act as obstacles. Each of these, when hit by the steel ball, brings a score or bonus to the player who hits it.
The work AKS1 Of Elena Alonso, located at the end of the two exhibition rooms of A+B Gallery, creates not only an access portal to the exhibition, but also takes on a key role, as the synthesis of an organic body that orients and at the same time disorients the visitor inside of space. And this is probably what strikes and amazes most about Alonso’s practice, an artist who condenses heterogeneous languages: on the one hand the dream-urban landscape and on the other the organicity and sinuosity of the body. Not far, in terms of approach, from the Florentine group Superstudio, Alonso’s drawings, made with mixed media, invite a sort of “rational-sensorial hyper-synesthesia”1 which merges the organic human with the artificial non-human . Everything in his representations is marked out and at the same time left to free interpretation, controlled and instinctive. As in pinball, where the steel ball hits the obstacles more or less randomly bringing bonuses to the player, even in AKS1 the s-rules are the same: you observe, (you) get lost, but you keep playing.
The previous collective Farbe curated by Giorgio Verzotti, also held at A+B Gallery, left a tangible trace in the exhibited works of Antonio Ballester Morenowhich perhaps best represents the chromatic influence inherited from Farbe, contextually to the geometry present in Alonso’s works. Ballester Moreno’s artistic research is in fact based on the synthesis and reinterpretation of his cultural and personal references, which range from everyday objects to cultural allusions in the fields of music, cinema and literature. Attracted by various forms of folklore and pop culture, as well as craftsmanship and customs, his images recall simple geometries, similar to those found in patchwork, embroidery, vases, tiles and children’s drawings. This artistic practice begins with a careful observation of natural forms, which the artist subsequently synthesizes and enriches with a chromatic variation, which has become a distinctive sign of the Spanish artist.
Julia Huete, the youngest of the artists on display, adopts a different approach, not based on observational synthesis but on the elaboration and valorization of the primordial idea. His artistic practice is imbued with a strong literary vein, which draws inspiration from the reading of texts, often of a poetic nature, which are translated by the artist into gestures on the canvas. These signs are first sketched on the surface with a pencil, and then completed by stitching embroideries that resemble pixelated curves, made possible by the material and support on which Huete works. In her work emerges a desire to combine literary and poetic language with the plastic one, integrating the spontaneity of the initial gesture of the pencil on the canvas with the patience necessary for the embroidery process, stitched “pixel after pixel”. Although the concepts of spontaneity and patience may seem antithetical, in Huete’s works they are harmoniously combined and fused into a single sign, offering a new perspective on the interaction between artistic gesture and creation process.
While for Julia Huete the gesture represents the fulcrum of the canvas, in the recent practice of Guillermo Pfaff abstraction emerges as the predominant element. The paintings of the Spanish artist, although chromatically recalling Morandi’s works, differ considerably from the compositional precision of the Italian master. Pfaff focuses on the expression of spontaneity and imperfection of the pictorial gesture, a choice that gives a unique character to his works. Many of the dynamics present in his paintings cannot be explained through conventional painting processes or the default configuration of forms. The latter, in fact, whether scattered or concentrated, simultaneously embody everything and nothing. Compared to the geometric shapes typical of previous periods, Pfaff now adopts irregular and imprecise, sometimes awkward figures, which appear to be a fusion of geometric and organic elements that act as models of accumulation, but at the same time lose their distinctive limits, fading into indeterminacy .
To better define the practice of Kiko Pérez Below is an extract from Heinrich’s text Ehrhardt Galleryin reference to the personal Gulf of Roses by the artist Guillermo Pfaff: «The triangle, a shape much repeated in his paintings, does not imply so much an “eclipse” as a sunrise. And far from the victory over the sun celebrated by Malevich, Pfaff’s approach is more empirical than spiritual.” Kiko Pérez stands out for his artistic practice aimed at dismantling traditional categorized conceptions. In her work, form, category and conventional analysis are eliminated through a disconnection from established logics. Pérez’s exhibited works focus on the use of paper not as a pre-established starting point, but as a condition free from preconceived decisions. His works, which combine overlapping papers, wood, geometric collage shapes and organic paint, create an enigmatic artistic panorama that challenges the traditional logic of painting. Pérez himself defines it as “altered mechanisms of the logic of painting”, where there is no predefined format or pre-established idea; what is observed is what comes before and what follows, in a fluid present that challenges temporal linearity. His work evokes a primitive and supremacist feeling, a force that takes us back to the origins, a journey in which everything is in flux.
The paintings of Miguel Marina they represent a process, in which idea, image and material come together in a unique synthesis. The works on display reveal a fused process, in which each piece and material leads to the next, generating formal and discursive leaps that explore the landscape and its multiple elements through the stratification of color levels. Marina’s works reveal and at the same time hide an inner world where the thick brushstrokes obscure and project a subtle shadow that gradually creeps between the work and the viewer, showing an individual and fragmented experience of nature perceived by the artist himself.
The works on display by José Díaz revolve around the idea of the technological city and the urban experience, especially linked to the nocturnal. The artist’s gaze focuses on the most underground spaces of cities, such as nightclubs and the subway, connecting these environments to the modes of virtual experience and simulated reality in video games, as well as to the organizational models typical of fantastic imaginations or cyberpunk dystopias. The objective is to highlight the importance of the poetics of the underground as a source of light and escape, which he understood as powerful emancipatory tools.
In this context, the concept of pinball emerges again, not only in its material manifestation as a game often associated with science fiction worlds, but also in the trajectories of the steel ball which, through contact with obstacles, creates an intertwined path of bounces, delineating and re-defining fantastic worlds and imaginary experiences. This dynamic highlights the transformative and creative power that resides in the interactions between the seemingly static and ordinary elements of our environment, suggesting an expansion of the vision of reality itself.
