Paolo Canevari at Galleria Christian Stein: Landscape as Memory and Resistance

From October 29, 2025, to January 31, 2026, Galleria Christian Stein in Milan (Corso Monforte 23) presents a new solo exhibition by Paolo Canevari (Rome, 1963), one of the most incisive and provocative voices of his generation.

Paolo Canevari Paesaggio, 2021 olio motore esausto su carta, Courtesy Artista e Galleria Christian Stein

Linked to the gallery by a long-standing collaboration that began in 2002, the artist returns with a project that intertwines matter, memory, and a profound reflection on the present, featuring both new works and earlier pieces.

Since his early years, Canevari has explored the relationship between historical identity and contemporary reality, developing a language that fuses the rawness of discarded materials with poetic and conceptual tension. Burnt motor oil, tire rubber, and industrial residues become symbols of a world fractured by conflict and polluted by ideological and ecological crises. The choice of such materials — remnants of modernity and its utopian drive for progress — expresses the artist’s urgency to reclaim meaning from decline. The black of oil and rubber, a recurring element in his poetics, is not merely the color of crisis but a meditative space, a place for reflection and transformation.

At the center of the exhibition is the cycle Monuments of the Memory (begun in 2011), which includes the Landscapes and Golden Works. In these pieces, Canevari abandons figuration to explore the evocative power of absence, combining diverse materials and references — from gold leaf and wood to altar panels and symbols of capitalism — to question the present and trace a shared memory. In the Golden Works (2019), gold becomes the sign of wounded spirituality; in the Landscapes (2018–2022), sheets of paper soaked in motor oil evoke organic forms and depths of thought. A large Landscape (2025), unframed and monumental, expands across an entire wall, turning matter into a site of contemplation.

Ritratto di Paolo Canevari, 2025 Foto Ilaria Lagioia & Pierpaolo Lo Giudice Courtesy Artista

At the center of the space stands the emblematic Sfera (2005), made by layering tire rubber over a wooden core. The geometric perfection of the sphere contrasts with the rugged imperfection of the material, a residue of mass consumption.

Although oil and rubber might suggest a brutalist aesthetic, this material harshness is softened by poetic and classical elements — baroque frames, golden glimmers, sinuous lines — producing a striking yet contemplative balance.

For Canevari, art is a critical and ethical act, a resistance to the visual noise of contemporary culture. Through minimal means and discarded matter, he restores art’s ability to awaken deep attention and inner silence — a human, spiritual dimension beyond spectacle and consumption.

Paolo Canevari Paesaggio , 2019 olio motore esausto su carta, Courtesy Artista e Galleria Christian Stein

With this exhibition, Galleria Christian Stein reaffirms its commitment to artists who redefine the language of the present. Paolo Canevari offers a powerful reflection on memory, materiality, and renewal, transforming industrial waste into metaphors of resilience and poetic rebirth.

Galleria Christian Stein

Corso Monforte 23, Milano

Date 29 Ottobre - 31 Gennaio 2026

Opening 18.00 - 21.00