Extra Runde

Philipp Gentili, Simon Michalik
March 15 – April 26, 2025

The exhibition Extra Runde presents a series of new paintings by Philipp Gentili and photographic works by Simon Michalik. Through the combination, superimposition, and repetition of motifs drawn from different contexts, the artists explore, in dialogue with one another, the concept of the “image within the image.” Inspired by the growing visual stimulation of the media, both artists use abstraction to reflect on the experience of images and to question our visual perception.

In his paintings on paper and canvas, Philipp Gentili gives life to forms inspired by real elements, which, through a process of abstraction, remain open to interpretation. His works invite viewers to look beyond the surface, to discover within the textures of appearance the complexity of visual perception. In this recent body of work, the artist continues his exploration of biomorphic forms in painting, where color is used organically to generate shapes. In certain drawings on paper, the pictorial field is divided into multiple parts by a structure reminiscent of comic strip panels or the formal grid of Instagram, where various images are presented within the same visual field. By painting several abstract vignettes within a formal logic that determines the classification and competition between contents, Gentili uses abstraction to reflect on the frameworks through which images are distributed and consumed, and on the very act of looking.

The repetition and recurrence of forms from the online world are reinterpreted within the paintings as a compositional logic of shapes that, while abstract, display mutual analogies and quotations. In this way, the works appear as portals to alternative dimensions of reality, where painting grows organically within the spaces allotted to it, reconfiguring the contemporary proliferation of images into an inquiry into the relationship between reality and representation.

Simon Michalik’s photographic works consist of photographs taken by the artist in places where he has lived or which he has visited. The individual photographs are transferred onto transparent sheets and superimposed, allowing the simultaneous printing of images from different environments onto a single surface through cyanotype. In other photographic overlays, the images are digitally printed on aluminum supports that reflect light, incorporating the reflections of the exhibition space into the composition.

In this series of works, the fragmented experience of photographic reality is recomposed into new images, where the originally represented forms become abstract by merging natural and artificial elements. The images, taken in different places and moments, are exposed to a second temporality through the influence of light during the cyanotype process, allowing them to transform and coexist in a new spatio-temporal dimension. By superimposing forms from diverse contexts, the works convey the perceptual experience of reality as a balance between familiarity and estrangement.

The photographic works reflect the artist’s encounter with places and the deterritorialization of our gaze in the simultaneous experience of images. By combining elements of natural and architectural landscapes, Michalik’s works create a shared visual territory that extends autobiographical experience into an experimental exploration of landscape photography.

The works were created with the intention of developing a shared discourse based on the affinities between the two artists’ individual practices. Gentili and Michalik contribute to generating multiple interpretations of representation and abstraction of real forms, comparing their painterly and photographic approaches with the perceptual structures and image dynamics that characterize contemporary visual experience.

Curated by Spazio CUT

Photographs by Tiberio Sorvillo