Pardon Façade documents the artistic output of Luca Monterastelli, showcasing almost all of the sculptures and installations that he produced between 2011 and 2022.
With four chapters corresponding to four solo shows that he staged in Milan, Otegem, Antwerp and Naples, the architecture of the book is structured around the photographic documentation of these exhibitions, each introduced with a text written by the artist for the occasion. The centrality of Monterastelli's writing to the book reflects his way of conceiving the medium of the personal exhibition as a specific narrative context, as a story that takes place between and with the works. This impulse of his towards a metaphorical and imaginary narrative is echoed by the eloquence of the titles of the works, which accompany the images in a story told across the pages.
Amid these four main groupings, we find images of individual works, some conceived for group shows, together with an essay by Martin Germann, a conversation between Matilde Guidelli-Guidi and the artist, and an introduction essay to Monterastelli's oeuvre by Alessandro Rabottini.
Luca Monterastelli (born 1983 in Forlimpopoli) develops an entirely individual, contemporary, sculptural vocabulary. His sculptures often consist of vertical, vaguely anthropomorphic forms, which create formal paradoxes that encourage the viewer to explore the work from up close. Monterastelli's abstract sculptures form an accumulation of geometric entities that each contain multiple, potential meanings. Aside from this playful formal language, his work is defined by his bold, robust choice of materials. Monterastelli clearly has a unique sense of materials and the mystery they evoke. As a spectator, one often does not know what material one is looking at. Is it cement or marble, limestone or linen?
