Limbo’s Lingo
DAVIDE D’ELIA

April 1 – 9, 2016

Otto Zoo and Bibo’s Place present Limbo’s Lingo, artist Davide D’Elia‘s first solo show in Milan.

The title LIMBO’S LINGO, is made up with two words of different languages. This is an emblematic approach of D’Elia’s artistic practice which proceeds using combinations, opposing poles, tensions longing for an evolving balance.

Limbo can be the one depicted by Dante, a place of passage by definition, but  it can also be  the white  neutral background of the photographic language.

Lingo as an AngloSaxon slang may define a type of language different from our own, but it can also be the language which contributes to the making of an artistic attitude.

Putting together an aulic concept and a contemporary slang, in a constant dialogue between cooling and transformation, D’Elia presents in Otto Zoo’s space an installation process developed starting from his antifouling painting. His practice consists in a pictorial overlapping used on old paintings and tapestries where he spreads the blue iris, a color normally used for objects that have to be protected by natural elements, but at the same time has to simulate a natural appearance, such as boats or swimming-pools.

“My painting acts on previous paintings on a selective and preservative manner – says the artist-. “I utilize insecticide to refer to its effect to save what is vital. At the same time I select what it is effective for my representation, I pick the fruit. All the rest of it is unuseful for me”.

The show presents new works: “frAnk”, antifouling painting on a mirror, and a series of diptychs: Untitled caldo/freddo”, “Pier-Aldo”, “El Dorado”.

“Bolo” a machine used in agriculture to spread verdigris is placed at the center of the space. For D’Elia it is a simulacrum of the concept of artificial versus natural, a thing created by the man to make a plant grow sacrificing others.

It is a machine that while destructing creates a perfect setting of limbo to make fruit grow, the better ones according to a human discretion.

Davide D’Elia was born in Cava dei Tirreni in 1973. He lives and works between Rome and London. His works has been shown at MAXXI, Museo delle arti del XXI Secolo (Roma, May 2013) and at the Venice Biennial (Nell’Acqua capisco, Procuratie Vecchie – Piazza San Marco, May – September 2013) and in galleries, as solo or collective shows, in Italy, England, Greece, Slovenia and Lebanon.