Crossing Over at Vincenzo De Cotiis Gallery, Milan.

For Vincenzo De Cotiis, the influences for his latest body of work, Crossing Over, are manifold. The migration and cross-pollination of cultures are among the primary influences of the collection. His investigation is about building contemporary urban imagery, where the city becomes the place of contamination and culture of displacement. The resulting collection resembles the work of an ethnologist who, through the study of cultures, traces and combines the differences and similarities within a given period.

“This is a journey,” says De Cotiis. “An exploration in search of places, places I have seen and spaces that exist in my imagination. I have pursued cultures in search of symbols and iconographies that could overlap with mine.”

Originating from the urban signs of contemporary cities graphic gestures of blacks and whites define and sculpt volumes. The presence of a neo-primitive, almost sculptural lymph is expressed in low tables and armchairs, which like massive thrones are rooted to the ground.

Tables structured by stilts that encompass the East to La Serenissima, wall paintings that reflect the many contradictions of the city, seats sculpted like African thrones and containers like anthropomorphic urns; there are many features of this new theory of Gestalt where the formal and material appearance becomes the voice for an unprecedented and unheard-of language.

The recovery of materials was fundamental to the development of Crossing Over, becoming the collection’s primary creative act. f – both recycled and new, glass, stone and metals combine in a new assembly process, delivering De Cotiis’ singular organic expression.

“Crossing Over is research on contamination. All that is layered inside me, which belongs to me, but above all, what I still haven’t encountered yet”, concludes De Cotiis.

‘Crossing Over’ runs until 3rd June 2021 at Vincenzo De Cotiis Gallery in Milan, Via Carlo De Cristoforis 14. For more information, visit decotiis.it.

[Images courtesy of Vincenzo De Cotiis Gallery.]