Galleria Franco Noero is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Phillip Lai.

The artist of malaysian origins transforms the Gallery space with a series of new works that convey the concepts of relations between objects, space, images, and express at the same time a feeling of dispersion, deferral and displacement.

Keynote is a structure realized with aluminium tubes that mimes the basic elements of the Gallery architecture, and it refers at the same time to a generic scaffolding system and to the buiding structures used for producing videos and films. The structure’s form is governed by its use to invert a human figure, a performing act that has been documented in a video to express a gravitational twist through an extreme act of physical effort. The video is deliberately not played in the same environment of the sculpture, but it represents its counterpart of displaced and deferred undisplayed reality.

A photographic print portrays the image of a man and a woman not interacting inside a space of collective experience like a gymnasium, putting in opposition the terms of coexistence and sharing with those of isolation and abstraction from the context.

Subtly altered plywood slabs cover a side of the floor defining rhythmically the horizontality of the space while indicating opposite direction lines in it and differences in weight and quality of materials, with the fine sand that dispels the thickness of the wood on the floor.

The same kind of experience is suggested by the lightness and softness of the foam that is crossed by metal strips of different shapes and weights.

Another inversion in use happens casting the seat of a plastic chair designed by Robin Day, a perfect example of functionality and economical restraint for an object of mass use, that becomes instead subtly precious in its shape, altered in order to fit in an industrial oil barrel.