Turin
Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
In “Frangibile” (on view through April 12, 2026), Elisabetta Di Maggio transforms tissue paper, leaves, porcelain, postage stamps, and bars of soap to create works characterized by physical lightness and conceptual heft. Using a surgical scalpel, she meticulously carves and amends matter through a process that exudes the concentration and tenacity required by hours of solitary labor. The resulting works are spellbinding, unexpectedly progressing from a first impression of ethereal stillness to the realization—after close observation and a generous allowance of time—that these friable, delicate objects harbor robust meditations on the precariousness of being.
Mapping the Air (2020) consists of two immense spans of translucent paper stretched between two pillars to form a double wall. Seemingly too frail to stay intact, this membrane defines and then closes off the open space within to everything but the passage of light and air. More material has been cut away than remains, leaving all-over patterns that might initially be mistaken for lacework. But the design is not decorative; instead, the web of positive and negative areas corresponds to the cartography of a street map. Larger patches of paper suggest open land held in place by the surrounding tracery, with changes in density indicating the relative importance of byways and thoroughfares.
The notion of networks and connected routes extends throughout the show. A series of relief maps portraying subway systems (2022–25), executed in draper’s pins and cut paper, reproduce the schematic diagrams devised by municipal transport systems in London, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, and Berlin to assist travelers. Though Di Maggio’s technical virtuosity is evident, it is not the point. She not only reveals the generic similarity of forms adopted by bureaucrats of diverse ideologies working in different nations with separate histories, but also exposes the clear connections that link these engineered structures to the pathways that transport vital life flows in organic systems, including the circulation of fluids and nerves through the human body. Punto improprio (Point of Infinity) (2025), made of tiny multicolored glass tesserae inserted into the open cells of a fine fiberglass sheet, makes the point clear. The sprawling mosaic, which covers an entire wall, extends branching mainstreams and tributaries in an abstract composition of growth that alludes in equal measure to plant, animal, urban, and digital circuitry.
Like Giuseppe Penone and Giovanni Anselmo from the preceding generation of Italian material conceptualists, Di Maggio exposes the interconnectivity of the universe. Paper is composed of plant fibers (Di Maggio uses the most unexalted variety, used for packing products), and the incisions she makes into dried cabbage leaves make visible the meandering grid of veins that permit plant growth. With extreme diligence, she cuts away the tissue to expose the vegetable’s fragile veining. By making the structure visible, she radically transforms the plant, rebuilding the leaf’s status as object.
Di Maggio’s technical language embraces mutability. Her work suggests organic remnant, decorative product, and artwork; and her co-ordination of eye, hand, and sharp-pointed instrument can fool the observer into imagining a machine was involved rather than a human. Thoughts of that type change the viewer’s perception of the object, attaching a strong ideological undertone. A dialogue opens up through form and process with the passage of time, fitting the pace of looking to that of making. Moreover, since Di Maggio’s process evokes the patient labor traditionally assigned to female workers, these objects induce thoughts of domestic settings, of craftwork rather than art or industry. When Di Maggio carves tablets of washing soap (specimens of the Sole brand familiar to Italian households by its shape, color, and fragrance), the objects become loaded with memories of the body.
Thus, a number of tentative aesthetic, technical, and political balances are struck. The viewer is invited to tease out their significance, as well as their material relevance. Soap bars are put together into rectangles (up to as many as 32) in another series of city maps (2008–15). Carved in continuous bas-relief across their abutting surfaces, they represent mapped streets in Fez, Algiers, and Paris, among other cities. Visually these assemblages resemble ancient cuneiform or hieroglyphic tablets (an idea re-enforced by their placement in protective solander boxes, used to store botanical specimens and delicate work on paper), cobblestone paving, and tactile plans that allow the sight-impaired to navigate spaces independently, an aid typically produced by 3D printing.
With the senses of sight, touch, and smell activated, allusions proliferate—associations with the surface of the skin and the home as a secure, clean place have to be reconciled with the risks of a modern metropolis where vulnerability is exposed and exploited. Carving entails attacking material to refashion its contours, and yet the violent cutting of flesh also has its place in curing the body. In Senza titola (Spine) (Untitled (Thorns) (2025), thorns are pressed into the edges of a pillar, rising from floor to ceiling. Their sharp points turn outward to potentially snag on unwary viewers, causing hurt. Their purpose in nature, however, is to protect.
Di Maggio, who comes from Milan originally and has lived in Venice since studying scenography at the Accademia di Belle Arti in the early 1980s, reflects on subtle, meandering shades of meaning. In Troiettoria di vola di farfalle no. 14 (Butterfly Flight Trajectory no. 14) (2023), perhaps her best-known work, a ribbon of entomologist’s steel pins re-creates the recorded flightpath of a butterfly. Nothing is random in this composition: as in existence, unpredictable pathways lead to the destination. The insect has a target, but it must constantly adjust its route, providing Di Maggio with the ultimate emblem for a practice fueled by metaphors of being.
