Alfredo Pirri | Dare voce: curated by Danilo Eccher

For the first time, Pirri engages with the architecture of the gallery’s new space, creating a project that brings together two large installations conceived specifically for the occasion.

In Pirri’s practice, painting and architecture share an impulse towards space, understood not merely as a container but as an active element. His work emerges from this ongoing relationship between form and environment, in which painting extends beyond its own boundaries and architecture becomes an integral part of the creative process.

The exhibition opens with a new installation Arie for Rome piano verticale, in which Pirri explores the relationship between painting and space through transparent surfaces, color and light. Vertical planes of colored acrylic encase feathers, a recurring element in the artist’s practice, evoking lightness, freedom and movement. Although enclosed within clearly defined structures, the feathers retain a sense of instability, suggesting potential for movement that contrasts with the static nature of the materials. The work thus unfolds within the architectural space, giving form to the relationship between painting and environment that Pirri describes through the images of “exploded paintings” and “compressed spaces”.

This reflection continues in the second room with Arie per Roma piano orizzontale, a new monochrome floor work made of crystal and containing white feathers. The walkable surface establishes a direct relationship with the gallery’s architecture and the movement of visitors, transforming the floor into a pictorial and perceptual surface that evokes the image of an inverted sky.

The exhibition concludes with a series of preparatory studies for Arie: watercolors made using feathers as brushes, in which the movement of air and the unpredictability of gesture contribute to the formation of the image. These works highlight the importance of drawing and painting in Pirri’s practice, both as preparatory tools and as an integral part of the making of his works. The studies on paper thus maintain a direct connection with the installations, revealing how his explorations in painting also underpin his interventions in space.