June – September 2020

Unpacking: From shelter to light.
by Elisabetta Bucciarelli 

Everything stopped. Auction houses, galleries, our lives. The paths and the destinations have changed and some revised their goals.
Our perception of the space is different as well as our position in the space has shifted. Two questions still remain, both practical and existential for all of us: where should we place ourselves and how should we do it.
The concept of the distance became real, one meter, two meters. Touching is a luxury.
Studio Gariboldi, as all the art professionals, try to adapt to the new ordinary. The gallery picks according to its taste and its own capacity and offers observational and acquiring directions.
At this time it decided to turn the point of view and to restart trying to invert the terms of the matter.
Emballage is a place where we found shelter, is where the artwork is protected. The packing is a nest, a refuge for a painting or a sculpture. It is all about not getting hurt, retreating and avoiding fractures.
Only after being kept in a solidly protected and well built place, it can be possible to start the Unpacking again and to bring back to light the precious core of ourselves and of what we hold dear.

In our spaces (real and vitual), therefore, it will be visible in rotation the protected and behind the scene work of the gallery.

Leaning, still wrapped in plastic, next to the crates, here they are – fragments of spirit, significant objects – the work of the artists and our choices.

They are many, a miscellany of colors and tecniques of painters and sculptors, seeking the light again, a new light, the right space and time to be once more appreciated.

Unpacking: From Shelter to Light

In this new era of social distancing, our perception of space has shifted. There’s something uneasy in the air, an unhappy ripple emanating from anyone who shouts, “Stay away!” Acknowledging these dynamics, Studio Gariboldi is taking direction from the word emballage, which it defines as a shelter “where artwork is protected. . . . It is all about not getting hurt.” In its spaces, both real and virtual, the Studio has placed artworks that are ready to be seen again, their protective packaging set nearby. On display are works by Karel Appel, Francesco Clemente, Wassily Kandinsky, George Condo, and many more. —

E.C., Airmail.com, 2020