Elisabetta Di Maggio. Frangibile

As part of TERZA RISONANZA, from 29 October 2025 to 1 March 2026, GAM – Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna di Torino is presenting a large retrospective of Elisabetta Di Maggio, curated by Chiara Bertola and Fabio Cafagna. Hosted in the rooms on the first floor of the Museum, the exhibition traces the artist's career as it has evolved and favourite themes, presenting historical works alongside new productions, specially conceived for the spaces of the GAM.

Since the early years of her practice, Di Maggio has paid the utmost attention to the material aspects of her work and the manual skill intrinsic to artistic creation. Her works enchant the viewer: vast walls of tissue paper the size of rooms, finely engraved by hand; Marseille soaps incised with a scalpel to form maps of vast urban agglomerations; glass mosaics and wax micro-mosaics resting on fragile, airy supports; porcelain as thin as sheets of paper; delicately balanced plant elements whose structures are revealed through fine carving; and regular overlays of postage stamps forming hypnotic mandalas.
The artist creates images in which the boundary between figuration and abstraction is so permeable that it confuses and, at times, unsettles us. What we see is constantly called into question. Is the meticulous carving the product of patience and dexterity, or was it achieved mechanically? Do the grooves that cut through the soap bars depict a city or a neural network? Is the white surface of her sculptures plaster, paper, or porcelain?

Fragility is not only inherent in the materials the artist chooses and in the very act of making, but also in what is required of those who observe: a release from preconceived images and an openness to enter a state of instability. Carving itself – a hallmark of Di Maggio's artistic process – is simultaneously a form of care and exploration of the material and a violent gesture that rends it irreversibly. This capacity to remain in a state of equilibrium underpins both the appeal and the disquieting force of Di Maggio's practice: the ability to render the experience of viewing her work a contemplative, continuously revelatory encounter.
The exhibition unfolds across six rooms in a journey conceived by the artist and curators, its stages illustrating the coherence of interconnected production cycles. Smells and sounds accompany visitors through the rooms, transforming the visit into a synaesthetic immersion.

The journey begins and ends with two works distant in time. One is Annunciazione, from 2025: two enlarged dragonfly wings in oxidised copper, an allegorical wish for every new journey to be undertaken. The other is Desiderale, a video work from 2006, in which the slow cutting of a 35 mm film strip's tail creates the shimmering of a starry sky—symbolising the tension that links, etymologically as well, the act of desiring with time and sidereal space.

The subsequent rooms feature themes of mapping and textures (urban, cosmic, organic), plant forms that preserve the memory of their growth, the sense of sacredness emanating from certain images of nature, and the vertigo caused by geometric patterns characterised by symmetry and repetition. A journey that, however you choose to take it, highlights the sense of wonder felt by the artist herself whenever she approaches images of the world. That same wonder conveyed by the enchanted eyes of a child and those of those who lose themselves in contemplation of Elisabetta Di Maggio's works.

The exhibition dedicated to Elisabetta Di Maggio is also an opportunity to present the works Paris, 2008. Mexico City, 2008, Fez, 2015, acquired thanks to funds made available by the Contemporary Creativity Directorate General of the Ministry of Culture, through the public notice PAC 2025 – Plan for Contemporary Art. GAM's victory, for the fifth consecutive year, has enabled the acquisition of these three important works for its collections: city maps finely carved into Marseille soaps, which represent a fundamental stage in the artist's creative journey.... read the rest of the article»