The Suzy Shammah Gallery presents a solo show of Alice Cattaneo (Milan, 1976), who works and lives in Milan after studying abroad for several years. The artist explores with installations and videos the banal materiality of objects and situations, attempting to seize the tragicomic aspect of life. Fragile constructions made of cardboard, masking tape, bits of wood or fabric, are transmuted into light images with ironic reversals.

The installations and videos exhibited at the gallery aim to transform the space into a sort of Wunderkammer. Alice Cattaneo's sculptures appear to be structurally redundant, even though they are conceived with ephemeral materials. The pieces are assembled in the space according to a process similar to the one of growth through proliferation. These constructions seem to contradict their functional aspects as they appear to be also generated by an intrinsic desire of being looked at, like in a theatre. In her videos objects are unstable and constantly falling, recalling children learning to walk. Short sequences are edited in order to create a micro-story in episodes where the main characters are miniatures made of clay, origami paper, fake flowers, that the artist play with, without appearing entirely on the screen. The videos, realized sometimes in stop-motion, have the rhythm of small puns. This element of surprise catches the spectator unawares and takes away the possibility to confer univocal meanings to the images running through the screen.