‘I felt divided, schizophrenic. The war, what
was happening in America, the brutality of the world.
What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading
magazines, raging about everything
thing-and then going to the studio and fading a red on a
a blue.’
(Philip Guston, circa 1968)
Banquet Gallery presents DAN, Carlo Zanni’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.
On show are recent and previously unseen works, including paintings, sculptures and a digital performance on the Internet, all focusing on the intersections of consumerism, anxiety, emoji and identity, against the backdrop of a perpetual war.
The Check-Out Paintings series explores the psychological limbo of the shopping experience, capturing the fleeting and compulsive emotions that eCommerce generates as a form of interaction with the world. These abstract paintings evoke contemplative reflection on anxiety, desire and awareness of our actions as we book, like, scroll, ship, zoom or return an item. The Check-Out Paintings relate digital culture to a traditional art practice, harking back to On Kawara’s explorations of time and Agnes Martin’s minimalist sensibility. With a delicate colour palette and the inclusion of visual elements such as emoji and Japanese emoticons used as clickbait, these paintings invite the viewer into a more intimate experience, ultimately revealing unexpected content.
Downstairs, in a dimly lit room, the DAN series is on display for the first time: laser-engraved MDF sculptures with distorted and distorted Amazon logos. Alterations generated by using a preliminary and imperfect version of DALL-E, an Artificial Intelligence software for generating images based on textual input – now integrated into ChatGPT.
DAN stands for ‘Do Anything Now’, a command that once allowed users to hack ChatGPT, bypassing its ethical and moral protections. These minimalist, shadowy sculptures invite viewers to engage in a symbolic process of unboxing and self-reflection. As the viewer adjusts to the low light, hidden forms gradually begin to emerge.
Complementing the exhibition is the online performance My Shameful Sweet Spot Between Distress and Hilarity, a digital, live and evolving work that explores the fragile balance between beauty, humour and absurdity in our lives. Using a bot that interrogates a fashion website with the latest news from Al Jazeera, the work transforms consumer culture into a dynamic meditation on human desires and vulnerabilities. This recalls Slavoj Žižek’s concept of ‘Unknown Knowns’ – those beliefs, values and ideologies that exist below our awareness and have a decisive impact on the way we perceive the world and act in it.
The works on display blend technology, social commentary and traditional techniques in a liminal state that evokes a feeling of instability and continuous transformation; elements typical of the artist’s research.
(from the press release)
Carlo Zanni. DAN, Banquet Gallery, Milano, 12.12.2024 – 01.03.2025
Carlo Zanni (La Spezia, 1975) is a conceptual artist whose research, from the very beginning, has found coherent results through the use of very different practices, such as painting and digital art. He has pioneered the use of third-party data taken from the Internet and has been exploring the public space of the web for over twenty years with ephemeral works that combine a strong social sensibility with a focus on privacy, identity and the individual.
As a painter, he focuses his attention on a new kind of ‘shared political landscape’ that has emerged with the Internet, which continues to transform human dynamics. At a time when eCommerce platforms dominate our lives, Zanni reworks these familiar environments as vectors for raising urgent social and political issues.
Zanni has exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, including: National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Marsèlleria, Milan; Tent, Rotterdam; MAXXI, Rome; MoMA PS1, New York; Borusan Center, Istanbul; PERFORMA 09, New York and ICA, London.
He is the author of the book ‘Art in the Age of the Cloud’ now being reprinted by Magütt Publishing, and was recently invited to present his research at the 10th edition of ‘Talking Galleries’ in Barcelona. His work appears in more than 50 books and catalogues, as well as hundreds of articles and online interviews. His first monograph is forthcoming from Printer Fault Press in 2025.
images: (all) Carlo Zanni. DAN, Banquet Gallery, Milan
