Alessandro Teoldi

Part 1 of 4

Alessandro Teoldi has previously explored domesticity, care, and intimacy through textile, but working from home without access to the materials and tools he typically uses has inspired him to look at these themes from an entirely new angle. For Homemade, Teoldi will turn to one of the most foundational materials for home construction: concrete. An initial inspiration for this project is Italian poet Eugenio Montale’s “Meriggiare Pallido e Assorto,” (1925) which mentions a wall topped with sharp bits of broken bottle glass that serves as an alternative to barbed-wire. Although this is a sign of security in Italy, glass can, of course, wound. Teoldi is interested in exploring this boundary between safety and harm as well as the notion of the wall as both a divider and connective structure. 

Project Statement

"For Homemade, I will experiment with cement and work around themes such as division and ambiguity, and the understanding of home as an intimate container or sculptural entity. My research will investigate the shifting relationships between the domestic and industrial as well as the familiar and unfamiliar through materials and images that are part of our everyday life yet can be perceived with ambivalence due to their malleable identities. It feels refreshing to think about these blurry dualities from my living room, which provides the opportunity to reconsider what spaces of artistic production can look like. A poem by Eugenio Montale entitled “Meriggiare Pallido e Assorto” (1925) serves as a starting point of inspiration for this work." - Alessandro Teoldi

Part 2 of 4

While connection and intimacy are familiar themes in Alessandro Teoldi’s work, he is now exploring them in a radically different way. Utilizing a variety of paper types—from old photograph paper to the encasings of “fette biscottate” (traditional Italian breakfast biscuits)—Teoldi creates a series of collages depicting figures in a state of embrace or longing. Once completed, he covers them with fresh, homemade concrete. With its heavy weight and liquid consistency, this concrete destroys Teoldi’s paper constructions while it simultaneously assumes their unique imprint as it dries. Solidified in the form of a concrete bas-relief, these images of interdependence, yearning, and care become powerful and poetic meditations on what builds connection, comfort, and home. 

Artist Statement

The starting point for this project is collages made using different paper that I find around my apartment. Through this practice, I am able to reassign meaning to the materials I am using and to re-contextualize them within a new perspective. In my work,I often use objects that are available around me and make something else with them. It’s not only a process about resourcefulness but also one that considers the different histories of the materials I am transforming and engages with their past. 

Part 3 of 4

From a makeshift studio in his living room, Alessandro Teoldi is continuing to experiment with concrete casting of paper collages. The protocols for this process have begun to recall actions of cooking for the artist, harkening to aspects of domestic life he reflects on in his oeuvre more broadly. Teoldi has been devising a way to preserve the original compositions, allowing for the potential reproduction; currently, the original collages are obliterated during the process of casting.

Artist Statement

In the past couple of weeks, I have spent time mixing cement with tap water and have realized that my muscles have memorized that movement from when I cook and bake—which I have done plenty of lately. The very four walls that define my apartment and keep me “safe” are made of the same material that I am now stirring together. It feels impossible that something this stable can come from dust. Pouring this mix over the paper collages makes me think about how much destruction plays a central role in the creation of these pieces, which are ultimately about connection, touch, and the domestic space.

Part 4 of 4

Alessandro Teoldi’s final four bas-reliefs solidify the artist’s longing for touch in their hardened cement form. As the quarantine ensues and human contact becomes an increasingly foreign concept and feeling, Teoldi’s works memorialize acts of tenderness, intimacy, and care in an effort to remind us all of their healing power and significance in our everyday lives. Their visual recollection of moments of togetherness recall the days preceding the pandemic, leaving viewers yearning for the past; however, they simultaneously look forward, encouraging us to collectively dream of a bright future to come.

Artist Statement

While looking at the series of finished pieces, I can’t stop thinking about how much they feel like intimate family photographs. A portrait, a kiss, and a lot of hugs and hands. Even in cement, I realize that I materialize the longing I have for touch, which feels metaphorical in a moment like this. Their imperfect form also makes them feel like objects that originated in a different era or a different world, as if I found them digging deep in my backyard and with them, another past or a distant future. 

About the artist

Alessandro Teoldi (b. 1987, Milan, Italy) is an artist whose practice involves textiles, sculpture, drawing and painting. In his work, Teoldi hints at the dissociative trauma of separation and creatively transforms the human need to establish affective connections with simple, everyday materials into intimate artistic mediations. Teoldi has had solo exhibitions at venues such as Marinaro, New York (2020); Suprainfinit Gallery, Bucharest (2018); 11 Rivington, New York (2017); and Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York (2016). His work has been included in group exhibitions at venues such as Palazzo Reale, Milan (2019); Assembly Room, New York (2019); Galerie Derouillon, Paris (2018); Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York (2017); and International Center of Photography, New York (2013), among others. His work has also been exhibited at Artissima, Turin (2019) and NADA, Miami (2019). Teoldi lives and works in New York.