'Icona chip', double solo exhibition for Stefano Benni

Opening today at Magazzeno Art Gaze on Via Testoni in Bologna is the exhibition ' Icona chip ', a double solo show by Margherita Paoletti and Marco (Zed1) Burresi . In fact, comparing the word 'icon' to 'chip' might seem like a serious misunderstanding, but in this case it's an anagram of Pinocchia , which, through a play on mere assonance, becomes a cheap, popular icon, in a jarring and suggestive oxymoron. But why Pinocchia? The story is long: in 1881, Carlo Collodi wrote Pinocchio, who, in the vast collective imagination shaped by this tale, embodies the desire to grow, to conquer humanity through the test of experience and real life. But in the second half of the 20th century, this archetype was overturned by the figure of Pinocchia, in which the transformation concerns not only the protagonist's gender, but also the moral and social meaning of the tale, both fable and provocation. The certainly documented version of Pinocchia was born in France in 1979, with texts by Francis Leroi and drawings by Jean-Pierre Gibrat, published by Éditions du Fromage / Les Humanoïdes Associés. It is an erotic-fairytale parody in the tradition of the French érotisme graphique of the 1970s.

Twenty years later, the name Pinocchia resurfaces in Italy with Stefano Benni 's play—to which the Bologna exhibition is dedicated—where Collodi's symbols are rewritten in a contemporary key: the Land of Toys becomes television, Mangiafuoco an unscrupulous impresario, the Cat and the Fox advertising agents: everything is appearance, consumption, spectacle. Pinocchia, aware of her own artificiality, chooses to remain wooden, because only in this way can she reject the hypocrisy of the world around her. Being a puppet becomes a form of authenticity: better to be an artifice that knows its own lie than a real creature constructed from the lies of others.

The concept of the body as a language of rebellion is found in the work of Margherita Paoletti , who has been exploring female identity for years. Similarly, Zed1 explores the human body and figure (pictured), transforming it into an emblem of freedom and irony, often employing satirical and provocative language. Her urban works (as well as her exhibition pieces) play with the idea of ​​transforming public space into a theater of critical messages.