QUADRI
Davide Mancini Zanchi
December 12th – January 24th
Opening: Friday, December 12th, 6:00 pm
A+B Gallery, Corsetto Sant’Agata 22, 25121 – Brescia
Hours: Thursday to Saturday, 3:00 – 7:00 pm, and by appointment.
Quadri is Davide Mancini Zanchi’s new exhibition, bringing together a selection of previously unseen works, divided into five series created specifically for the show. In this sixth solo exhibition with A+B Gallery, the artist explores the pictorial gesture as a physical, mental, and conceptual act. The exhibition unfolds through the different series, each of which, often with a touch of irony, questions the relationship between painting practice, its resulting language, and the meaning of images that belong to our everyday life, thus expanding Mancini Zanchi’s reflection on the role of the painting within today’s cultural context.
In the Scritte series, the artist combines small-format paintings with words set against dense, emotionally charged abstract backgrounds. The words, chosen for their reassuring tone, take on a central presence that reveals a certain imperative force. The relationship between the fluidity of the background and the rigidity of the word creates a semantic misalignment, turning the message into an assertion that allows an unresolved void to surface. The effect, reminiscent of memes, shifts the meaning of the image and highlights the ambiguity between what is said and what is perceived, opening the painting to a reflection on itself.
The Nature Morte series stems from the link between physicality and the pictorial gesture. Using spray paint—an extension of the body—the artist creates traces and marks that do not merely represent but testify to an action. Layers and repeated gestures create a presence that goes beyond the static nature of the image, engaging with the tension between control and chance, construction and dispersion.
In Paesaggi ItaGliani, the artist uses the colours of the Italian flag to recreate landscapes that do not simply depict reality but question its cultural construction. The very title plays with language and political history, introducing a critical element that extends beyond aesthetics. The series reflects on the rhetoric of the national landscape and the ideologies it carries, offering an ironic and critical reading of identity imagery.
Costellazioni consists of monochromes in shades of nocturnal blue, where the artist projects small saliva-soaked paper balls onto the canvas, creating unprecedented compositions. The simple, direct gesture intertwines the body with the material, turning the painting into an intimate, personal space. The choice of blue evokes the mystery of night, while the paper pellets trace marks that give life to an imagined universe. The work plays with the physicality of the pictorial gesture, introducing a playful and irreverent dimension that also hints at social and communicative dynamics.
In the Polittici Transformers, the artist challenges the traditional function of the painting as a contemplative object. The polyptychs consist of elements that can be dismantled and reassembled, transforming into a new object—a vehicle. Painting is no longer just a surface to look at but becomes something to manipulate and reorganize, exploring the tension between art and function, contemplation and action.
Quadri is an exhibition that invites viewers to reconsider the role of painting today. With his easeful approach and ability to play with the meaning of images, Davide Mancini Zanchi challenges conventions and offers a space for reflection on matter, gesture, and visual language as tools of thought.
Davide Mancini Zanchi was born in Urbino in 1986. After attending the Academy of Fine Arts of Urbino, in 2014 he was a guest of the DENA Foundation for a residency project in Paris. Also in 2014, he began exhibiting his work in solo and group shows, including Blitzen Benz, Toys are us and Domenica at A+B Gallery in Brescia, Da che mani vidi Zan Cin at Otto Gallery in Bologna, Mira il mare mà lê at the Visual Arts Center Pescheria in Pesaro, No diamond in the sky at Fondazione Pastificio Cerere in Rome, and Coba Coba at Megadue in Bologna. In 2020 he received the Italian Council award for a cultural exchange project in Uruguay, with a residency in Montevideo. In 2022, MONOCHROMO was published, a monographic book edited by Gabriele Tosi and published by Cura.books, documenting his artistic journey. Today he lives and works in Acqualagna, collaborates in an ongoing and open exchange with PierPaolo Calzolari, and teaches Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Urbino.