Brescia
Recent work by ANISH KAPOOR is on view at GALLERIA MASSIMO MININI (until 10 April). The show focuses on sculptures created in Italy over the last two years and includes marble works made in Carrara and Brescia, alabaster pieces from Volterra and ceramics from Prato. Throughout the show, works are exhibited in pairs. The two halves of a huge block of granite, positioned by the gallery entrance, welcome the visitors as they enter. Ceramics coloured with Kapoor's characteristically bright pigments are incorporated into the walls.
Milan
British and American artists have long been working with video. For the last two years the coveted Turner Prize in Britain has been awarded to artists working in this medium (in 1997 to Gillian Wearing and in 1996 to Douglas Gordon). The work of up-and-coming Italian video artist GRAZIA TODERI on view at GALLERIA GIÒ MARCONI (until end March) recalls the work of British artists such as these more than a little. Visitors to this show may remember Gordon's "24-hour Psycho", in which Hitchcock's classic film was slowed down to play over twenty-four hours, and Wearing's winning Turner prize entry, "Sixty minutes, silence" which focuses on a group of twenty-six policemen and women in mock line-up formation who remain virtually immobile for an hour. At first glance, Toderi's videos reveal little movement at all, but they are, in effect, slowed-down narratives. They include "Nontiscordardime" (Don't forget me), a video of a jet of water falling onto a vase of flowers, and "Zuppa dell'eternità e luce improvvisa" (Stew of eternity and sudden light) which represents a woman trying to open an umbrella at the bottom of a swimming pool.
Turin
The archaic and decorative symbols of the Mayan civilisation are the starting point for the work of LUIS GONZALEZ PALMA, originally from Guatemala, but now living in New York. Fifteen of his photographs retouched with paint are on view at the GALLERIA PHOTO & CO. (until 18 April). The recurring motifs include shells and abstract geometrical forms.
Galleria Massimo Minini, via Apollonio 68, Brescia +39(0)30383034
Galleria Giò Marconi, via Tadino 15, Milan +39(0)229404373
Galleria Photo & Co., via dei Mille 36, Turin +39(0)11889884
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Anish Kapoor and Mayan motifs and a stew of eternity in Milan'