Ncontemporary

Milan | Venice

Fortune Cookies

September 25 — December 20, 2025

Ncontemporary

Via Lulli 5, Milan

Ncontemporary is pleased to present Fortune Cookies, a solo exhibition by Cristiano Tassinari (Italy, 1980) with a text by Rischa Paterlini. Presented at the gallery in Milan as the third chapter of a journey started with Mother's Bliss (2019) and Gli uomini delle scintille (2023), Tassinari, after his exploration of the themes concerning family memories and roots, returns to himself. Each work is an unexpected encounter, requiring no explanation but inviting us to inhabit the time of the work: a fragile space, always in transition, in which the visible and the invisible coexist.

Moving between painting and sculpture, the artist’s practice unfolds as a series of transformations: in Putto and Self-portrait as a Young Man (Pyromaniac), bodies bend and dissolve; in Roses Bar and Lovers, intimate gestures are captured at the moment just before their full realization; while in Portrait with Flowers, the portrait escapes definition. At times, human figures withdraw, giving way to animals, hybrid forms, and presences suspended between vision and disappearance (Auspicious Beast, Night Bamboo). In the sculptural works Philharmonie and Prussian’s Breast, the figure vanishes entirely, revealing a distinctly Berlin character made of layers and references—the titles, the architectural echoes of Scharoun’s concert hall, and materials such as copper that, with time, change color, like the city’s rooftops. Cuts and joints here resemble slits or fragile seams. The artist thus weaves together bodies, memories, and metamorphoses, shaping a path that unfolds not linearly but through appearances and dissolutions. His works do not present themselves as complete narratives: they are fragments that flare up in the present, oscillating between intimacy and distance, between desire and transformation. Bodies that tilt, withdraw, multiply into new forms; animals that emerge from vegetation, which simultaneously bursts forth and dissolves; colors that become living matter, capable of breathing.

Fortune Cookies is an invitation to linger on images without the need to fully decipher them, embracing their incompleteness as an essential part of the experience. Just like fortune cookies: some remain closed, others open at just the right moment.

Cristiano Tassinari (Forlì, 1980) lives and works in Berlin. His work reveals ambiguous relations and reactions, documents his own self-generation, and draws attention to simple everyday objects such as reflective surfaces, neon lights, or sculptures. Different (seemingly divergent) paths converge toward the same goal: the intention to transfer private emotions into public space, to foster awareness of the universal value of themes such as death and human fragility. Over the past decade, the artist’s works have been exhibited at MAR in Ravenna, PAC in Milan, MAM in Mantua, Opificio delle Idee in Rovereto, the National Art Gallery in Bologna, MAC in Lissone, Bernheimer Contemporary Gallery in Berlin, Museo Michetti in Francavilla al Mare, and Van Der Gallery in Turin.