Flashbacks – 8. Vincenzo Castella

BUILDINGBOX presents, from 8th April 2022 to 7th January 2023, Flashbacks, an exhibition curated by Alice Montanini that retraces the most important stages of BUILDING’s artistic research and promotion, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of its birth.
Flashbacks pays tribute to all the artists, curators and essayists who have contributed to shaping BUILDING’s core, presenting for the first time in an organic way a selection of works from the gallery’s permanent collection, accompanied by the catalogues and archive materials that document its curatorial practice over the last five years.

From 29th July to 2nd September, 2022, BUILDINGBOX hosts the diptych #2 San Maurizio, #3 San Maurizio by internationally acclaimed artist Vincenzo Castella, known for his photographic research focused on architectural spaces and the urban landscape.
These large-scale photographic works offer a view of the frescoes of the Church of San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore. Castella’s lens restores these Renaissance interiors with incredible accuracy, inviting our eye to dwell on those details that are often lost in the monumental context of these imposing architectures, such as the porous surfaces of the marble and the minuteness of the decorative elements that adorn the ceilings and columns. The strongly vertical cut of the image communicates a sense of elevation and mysticism, accentuated by the rarefied atmosphere of soft, impalpable colors, which lend a painterly connotation to the image.
The vision evoked by Castella’s work detaches itself from the original context to become a concrete, independent object with an autonomy and dignity of its own. The privileged proximity and defined contours of the artist’s gaze cancel the space outside the frame and open the gaze to the richness of the fragment.
From February 27th to April 27th, 2019, BUILDING hosted the solo exhibition Milan by Vincenzo Castella, curated by Frank Boehm. Through a selection of thirty medium- and large-format works, more than one hundred previously unpublished images with the subject of the construction of the San Siro stadium, and three video projections, this exhibition project presented the public with a never-before-seen anthology of the artist’s work in Milan.

Central to Flashbacks‘ investigation is the moment of the exhibition, here conceived as a medium, mirroring the relationships and dynamics generated between the work, the artist and the gallery space, which flow into the more complex sphere of that system of critical and aesthetic categories that are at the basis of BUILDING’s curatorial approach and programming.
An important focus of Flashbacks is also the catalogues published by BUILDING to accompany each exhibition. BUILDING’s strong focus on study and research, not only as a hub for the promotion of contemporary art but also as a publishing house, is evinced by the careful selection of essayists and texts included in the various publications.

The exhibition will provide an opportunity to think back to the highlights of BUILDING’s curatorial activity, while also looking ahead to the future of its programming. To look back at the recent past with gratitude to all those who have accompanied BUILDING to date, but also with a critical eye, in order to outline new coordinates with which to question the present and better orientate ourselves towards the future.
An open-door reinterpretation of its collection, through some representative works by the main artists promoted by the gallery, and of the curatorial and publishing activity carried out so far, presented in the spaces of BUILDINGBOX at irregular intervals and visible 24/7 from the window of via Monte di Pietà 23 in Milan.