The creative space Arcipèlago is thrilled to present its new exhibition around the playful theme of collages. On this occasion, artists Giona Maiarelli and Vanda Gemino have been invited to present their most recent artworks. Cheerful or serious, irreverent or essential, the selected collages push us to explore the cracks of everyday life, and the fascinating power of random, unexpected and disparate.
This show is an opportunity to travel between reality and wonder, here and elsewhere, past and present, identifiable and bizarre, as many new visual territories to be excavated and deciphered.

On January 1st, 2016, Giona Maiarelli started to create every evening a collage with the pages of the “New York Times”. A way to witness a year that would be tumultuous (Trump had already announced his candidacy for president). The challenge of working with limited material forces him to look with fresh eyes and an open mind. Twenty-one collages of the “New York Times Art Project” will dive us into our most recent actuality across a visual kaleidoscope where one can discern the deep relationship between the collages and Giona’s graphic design practice.

Arcipèlago will also present Giona’s new series, “Survey of the American West.” These collages are made with photographic images exploring the “West” of the United States, commissioned by the American government to photographers such as Ansel Adams between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. Hand-painted geometric paper shapes dialogue with black and white photographic images of a severe and solemn nature.

“Whether it’s current events or majestic nature, what links these themes is the ambiguous charm that exerts on me the American visual imagination. To avoid falling into stereotypes, I wanted to use an iconography typical of the United States, telling America with my gaze, that of a foreigner.” Giona Maiarelli.

Vanda Gemino creates brooches using newspapers, vintage magazines, photos and postcards from the 40s–60s. Her practice of collage led her to work on a very small scale. Her brooches are windows on her poetic imagination where fragments of memories, pieces of old times and her romantic creativity create piece after piece an intriguing and sensitive puzzle.