In conjunction with the opening of the 17th Architecture Biennale 2023, Galleria Michela Rizzo is pleased to present Alessandro Sambini’s solo exhibition “L’Era dei Giganti” curated by Francesca Lazzarini.
“L’Era dei Giganti” reflects on the relationship between real and virtual space and how these dimensions intertwine to compose our hybrid experience of the world. The exhibition is divided into two paths, one accessible in OG (‘Original Gangster’, an expression borrowed by the artist from American slang and translated into Italian as “alla vecchia”) mode, the other in VR (virtual reality accessible through a visor) mode.
The first path hosts a series of significant works in the strand of artistic research dedicated by Alessandro Sambini to new technologies, works that can be considered preparatory to the unpublished virtual work presented here. These include People at an exhibition (2016), a series of stickers resulting from a robotic performance aimed at exploring the relationship between viewers and images on the web; Spelling Book (2018), an investigation into the capacity of an artificial intelligence to create archetypal images; MARIO (2021), a synaesthetic device invented by the artist to establish a connection between photographer and photographed subject; and Tecnocopia (2022), a VR installation that investigates the concepts of portrait, identity and reproducibility in virtual spaces.
The second part of the exhibition, which can only be visited by appointment, features Alessandro Sambini’s latest work, “L’Era dei Giganti”, a performance for metaverse in virtual reality from which the exhibition takes its title, and which develops between the last room of the gallery and the room on the upper floor. The Age of Giants, in line with Sambini’s fields of investigation
offers an experience that leads to a critical reflection on the aesthetic and narrative forms imposed by TikTok on its users. Starting from a reflection on the proportions, physical, optical and conceptual, to which the use of social networking exposes us, the artist brings us into the presence of the figure of a giant, with whom we can interact and converse. Reformulating narrative excerpts from TikTok videos through fiction, the work invites us to question the actual dimensions of these figures and to reconsider our role as users of digital platforms.
By placing the new project in dialogue with his previous works, the exhibition retraces and extends Alessandro Sambini’s artistic research, which has always been committed to exploring the relationship between new technologies and the forms of perception and knowledge they activate, in order to rethink their potential in a critical and emancipatory key.

Alessandro Sambini

Born in Rovigo in 1982, he lives and works in Milan and is represented by Galleria Michela Rizzo in Venice, MLZ Art Dep in Trieste and Galleria Indice in Milan. After graduating in Design and Arts at the Free University of Bolzano and a Master in Research Architecture at the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths’ College in London, he moved to Milan. Here he began working with photography, video and other media and questioning the needs and modalities that govern the production of new images, their circulation and dissemination and the different areas of relationship between the image itself and its audience. Since 2018, he has been an adjunct professor of Photography at the two-year Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies course at NABA (Milan) and an adjunct professor of Visual Communication at the Master in Photography course at NABA (Milan).
In 2022 he worked on the public commission 13 Photographers for 13 Museums, launched by the Regional Directorate of Museums of Lombardy with a site-specific project on the Expiatory Chapel of Monza and on the virtual reality project TECNOCOPIA. From 2019 he works on the public performance 1624 and from 2021 on the project MARIO, presented at ARTISSIMA 2021 in Turin.
In 2020, on the occasion of the XVI Giornata del Contemporaneo, he was invited by MART, Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, to develop a site-specific project entitled The Gallery Revolve 2; he also participated in Metafotografia (2 magini, BACO, Bergamo, curated by Sara Benaglia and Mauro Zanchi.
In 2018 he participated in Talking (about) Images, Škuc Gallery, Lublijana, curated by Francesca Lazzarini. In 2017 he took part in the group exhibition Fuocoapaesaggio curated by Dolomiti Contemporanee and was selected to participate in Plat(t)form 2017 at the Fotomuseum, Winterthur; in 2016 the Fondo Privato Acquisizioni per l’arte contemporanea di ArtVerona selected the work People at an exhibition for acquisition and deposit at MA*GA, Gallarate. The same work was presented on the occasion of the homonymous solo exhibition curated by Denis Isaia in July 2016 at Galleria Michela Rizzo. In the same year he participated in the group
show Stories From the Edge, curated by Francesca Lazzarini, at Kunsthaus Graz (Austria) and in the exhibition On New Italian Photography, curated by Fantom at Galleria Viasaterna (Milan 2016). In 2012 he was invited to Art Around, a public commission by the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Cinisello Balsamo.
The artist’s projects were also presented at: Foto/Industria, II Biennial of Industrial Photography, curated by François Hébel, at MAST (Bologna, 2015); Flags, at Serra dei Giardini, curated by Elena Forin (Venice, 2014); Lo Spettatore Emancipato, curated by Angela Madesani, at Galleria Giovanni Bonelli (Milan, 2014). He has collaborated with various institutions, including MUSEION, FORMA, MUFOCO, MAST, MA*GA and Triennale di Milano.
In 2022 he won the New Post Photography prize at the MIA Photo Fair, in 2021 the Fabbri Prize, in the Contem rize for Visual Arts, Third Landscape.