Homo Ludens
19.Nov.15
30.Jan.16

Magazzino is pleased to present an exhibition project resulting from the collaboration between Japanese artist Arina Endo (1983, lives and works between Florence and Berlin) and Gianluca Malgeri (1974, lives and works between Florence and Berlin). For his third solo show at the gallery, Malgeri invited Endo to think of a project together. The collaboration between the two artists started in 2015 in the occasion of the exhibition Edge of Chaos, whereEndo and Malgeri presented for the first time the series of sculptures Expelled from Paradise, inspired by the âLand of Toysâ in the tale of Pinocchio. This collaboration continues with Homo Ludens, an exhibition inspired by Carmelo Beneâs reinterpretation of Pinocchio, and his metaphor of the âheroic refusal of growing upâ.
The artistsâ fascination for the concept of âLand of Toysâ begins from the observation of the city of Berlin, where they both live, and from the consideration and perception of the city as a place where one can loose a sense of adulthood, renounce all conscience and given rule. This vision is obviously misleading and utopic, as the âLand of Toysâ can only be an imaginary place. The series Expelled from Paradise is the development of this very concept and investigates play in both material and metaphoric terms.
The title of the exhibition, Homo Ludens, quotes a pivotal essay by Huizinga, where the author defines play as the fundamental and necessary base of social organisation and civilisation. Through play, also common to animals, mankind shifts from his natural and instinctive phase to a cultural one.
The tale of Pinocchio demonstrates this shift and the contrast between the acknowledgement and acceptance of the given rule (that belongs to growing up into an adult conscience), and âthe great childhood dream, of rebellion and escapeâ (Manganelli). Abiding social rules is the key to Pinocchioâs transformation into a good boy; âthe disappearance of the nose is the moment of his surrender to obedienceâ (Bene).
The two artistsâ vision is at the same time grand and intimate: a metaphor for innocence set aside in the imposed pursuit of adaptation to social convention, and at the same time, the refusal of the adult condition, the âsenseless, civilised and brutal growing upâ (Bene). In what he defines as the âPinocchio situationâ, Carmelo Bene warns us not to âgive inâ to adulthood. This notion translates in Malgeri and Endoâs work, into a meticulous and articulate construction. Pinocchio appears like an enormous container of a fantastic city, a toy puppet, almost a monument to innocence, to irreverence and to the intrinsic anarchy of the creative act.
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