A mali rimedi stems from a three-months residency by Pietro Agostoni, back at Associazione Barriera after his 2021 solo “Why Me”?. The show registers a new chapter in the experimentation and systematization of his ongoing cycle of soot drawings titled Ascendo, presenting for the first time full-body and group compositions of the figures that have characterized the series since its debut in 2018. Between stain and mirage, these are the result of a self-devised system of tinfoil cones that channel candle flames, allowing the lumpblack to settle on the surface of old sheets. A tribal production in essence, which makes use of rudimentary materials and draws from vandalism and DIY techniques while simultaneously exploring the poetics and techne of fire.

Smoke becomes unruly agent and proto-pen, forcing artistic will to constantly negotiate with the entropic behavior of its plume, or at least to find ever changing solutions that accommodate it. Among these: rotating frames, acetates and lightboards at the verge of obsolescence, making the whole production process—and its subjects—highly performative. Breath too becomes part of a ritual where the slightest air displacement can alter the desired image. It is from this dance on the razor’s edge that insolent flames’ daughters clot in the space, smirking slag of black metal particles.