Galleria Michela Rizzo is pleased to announce the exhibition FATALITÀLIA, the second solo exhibition of Venetian artist Luca Clabot at Giudecca, which will open on Saturday 13 January 2024.
A surprising, provocative exhibition, FATALITÀLIA is neither resilient, nor inclusive, nor eco-sustainable, nor even green.Luca Clabot is presenting a series of works with an insightful take on coincidence, embodying the unique point of view of the ‘infanziano’, that is, an elderly person who retains the pure, untainted gaze of a child (the term infanziano being the result of the crasis of the words infante, i.e. ‘child’, and anziano, i.e. ‘elderly person’).

FATALITÀLIA represents the awareness that things are there waiting for us, happy to reveal the secrets they hide within themselves or in their name. Things are beautiful and ripe – you just have to pick them.
The exhibition opens with an intriguing anagram of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s famous phrase, “o si fa l’Italia o si muore” (i.e. ‘either we make Italy or we die’), which is turned into “e sia muoio fra l’alitosi” (i.e. ‘I die surrounded by bad breaths’), offering a taste of the irreverent, critical tone of the entire exhibition.
An analysis of certain aspects of Italian history over the last 123 years unfolds with the series ‘Gli Amici di Topolino’ (Mickey’s Friends), a survey of the people who used to read the Topolino comic strip when they were younger. Each work reflects the childhood of the readers of the historic Disney comic strip between the 1960s and the 1970s, subsequently revealing their controversial behaviour as adults.
The itinerary continues with ‘Viaggio in Italia tra 500 e 600’ (A Journey throughout Italy between the ‘500s and ‘600s), a work that brings together vintage postcards depicting the legendary FIAT 500 and 600 cars, symbolizing an era of Italian history. It is a visual portrayal that crosses Italy, offering a play on the most enlightened centuries of Italian history, that is, the 16th and 17th centuries.
Subsequently, with the work ‘Pagine bianche’ (White pages), Clabot categorises and organises Italian surnames that are considered significant, turning randomness into a structured analysis. An example of this is ‘Conto presentato al popolo italiano’ (A bill given to the Italian people), a long list of 135 types of surnames, representing the 135 people who bear that surname in Italy. Based on the geographical distribution of surnames in the Italian peninsula, there are 45 ‘Primi’, 33 ‘Secondi’ and 44 ‘Aperitivi’.
In addition to this, there is a series of provocative works, such as ‘Incontro luce’ (Meeting light), a surprising visual interpretation of the overlap between the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and the dropping of the atomic bomb. A page of an encyclopaedia from the late 1960s shows a description of the Assumption on one side and the atomic bomb on the other. The overlap can be seen by looking at the page against the light, as the Virgin Mary seems to emerge from within the mushroom cloud. It is interesting to note that the atomic bomb was dropped on 6 August, the day of the Transfiguration of Jesus, while the Assumption of the Virgin Mary takes place on 15 August. This temporal concurrence constitutes an extraordinary coincidence... a fully-fledged fatalitàlia.
Further works such as ‘Al cabaret Voltaire, Clabot era la verità’ (Le cabaret Voltaire, Clabot was the truth), ‘Salto di cubo incubo’ (Jump cube nightmare), ‘Clabot / innesto a denti’ (Clabot / tooth graft) and others explore visual and conceptual language, thus offering a daring, dreamlike look at reality and perceptions.
Finally, the exhibition features new works that originate from the transfer of paper onto glass, creating an evocative, enigmatic dimension. Such a merging of language and matter turns the work into an evocative vision of art.

FATALITÀLIA is an exploration of coincidences, a challenge to normalcy and a journey into the unexplored. It is an invitation to contemplate the randomness that shapes our world, to be “superficial to the core”, just like a true fatalitàlia.