TAG Art Museum Launches Italian Duo Exhibition!
On April 3, 2025, TAG Art Museum proudly presents the Italian duo exhibition—Cecilia De Nisco’s What Did You Expect from Us and Viola Leddi’s Dear Hateful Spirits. These two internationally acclaimed young female artists inject fresh vitality and multicultural perspectives into this year’s exhibition program.
双个展开幕现场
With divergent creative approaches, the artists construct a mutually reflective visual laboratory across Hall 2–4. In Hall 2 and 3, sunlight filters through Cecilia’s “Golden Series”, illuminating her unrestrained brushstrokes and ambiguous interplay of light and shadow. Hall 4 showcases Viola’s confrontation with space: a blue-toned environment, fragmented structures, worn-out platforms, and a “couch fort” filled with toys coalesces into an abandoned, unfinished “white box” and a ghostly amusement park.
What Did You Expect from Us
“你对我们有何期待”展览现场
Cecilia’s exhibition title What Did You Expect from Us responds to the perpetual societal expectations imposed on existence. This is not a question but a declaration—a rejection of overwhelming external demands. The artist’s silence during the opening tour speaks volumes: “The most important thing is to leave room for imagination, not a clear narrative.”
Her velvety canvases appear to gently envelop viewers, yet an undercurrent of tension pervades every inch of space, revealing an inescapable force. Her works thrive on contrast: while depicting intense bodily struggles, she disarms tension with whimsical details like small flowers, infusing her art with subtle humor.
“你对我们有何期待”展览现场
Hidden details often emerge—a nearly invisible figure dynamically entangled with the central subject. This reflects Cecilia’s roots in comics, where characters coexist with their “inner selves” (or alternate versions).
《就这样吧，拥抱最坏的》, 2025，200x150cm
Though artists are often misread as projecting self-portraits, Cecilia avoids intentional self-representation. Yet traces of her presence seep into her works, not as strategy but as an involuntary “affect”—an emotional eruption balancing creation and self-expression.
“你对我们有何期待”展览现场
She resists aligning her art with contemporary narratives, allowing unspoken emotions to linger in the brushstrokes. So, what did you expect from us?
Dear Hateful Spirits
“亲爱的可憎之灵”展览现场
Transitioning from Cecilia’s luminous space into Viola’s shadowy realm feels like stepping into a rational yet tender dark fairy tale. As the title Dear Hateful Spirits suggests, the exhibition explores the coexistence of benevolent and malevolent spirits—an invisible thread weaving through each work’s logic.
“亲爱的可憎之灵”开幕现场
Viola’s ten pieces in Hall 4 dissect spatial and emotional layers, divided into three thematic zones:
“亲爱的可憎之灵”展览现场
First Zone: Deconstructing Institutional Spaces
This section features new works critiquing the sterile aesthetics of galleries and offices. Despite their velvety surfaces (achieved via airbrushing and custom canvases), Viola disrupts order with scratches, collages, and surreal elements like floating Rubik’s cubes—hinting at the “clues” left by unseen spirits or absent humans.
“亲爱的可憎之灵”展览现场
Second Zone: Intimacy and Self-Narration
Here, Viola delves into the adolescent female psyche and private spaces.
The installation “H.W.P.L.G. Couch Fort” —created collaboratively by five Qingdao girls (Han Xinhe, Wang Mingxi, Peng Zixuan, Liu Chenjin, Gai Zichen)—challenges adult-centric narratives. Unsupervised, the girls built a “micro-utopia” of personal storytelling
“亲爱的可憎之灵”展览现场
“亲爱的可憎之灵”展览现场
“亲爱的可憎之灵”展览现场
“亲爱的可憎之灵”展览现场
Another highlight, Pajama Party, merges a teenage bedroom with Italian horror tropes—mirrors, fragmented bodies, and a vampire behind curtains—blending eerie charm with homage to Italian artistry.
“亲爱的可憎之灵”展览现场
Third Zone: Visualizing Migraine
Viola translates her chronic migraines into art: blue-threaded self-portraits on grids, collaged with dizzying text fragments and stars. This absurdly adorable yet visceral series maps her bodily and cerebral pain.
“亲爱的可憎之灵”展览现场
“亲爱的可憎之灵”展览现场
「
Now that she has hung her touching paintings and drawings, now that she has intricated our reality and imbued us with a mysterious sense of uneasiness, she can drink from her small bottle of tonic water, look at her works, stare at us, and whisper with a sneer: ‘Hey, what did you expect?’
」
—— Giorgio Di Domenico