Federico Pepe fills the void in our lives, multiplying the ecstasy of emptiness ad infinitum (a project by Federico Pepe & Le Dictateur Studio curated by Elena Volpato).
You're not ready. So let's go.
The protagonist here is Nothing™, created by Federico Pepe, curated by Elena Volpato.
Nothing™ is the void and also a registered trademark. It is absence in its most eloquent form, all dressed up to scream out its silent presence and become a new object of desire.
It was shut away in boxes, envelopes, packets: an explosion of design, an orgy of imagination, a riot of plausible and impossible shapes.
Nothing™ brand packaging doesn't exist in reality, but nevertheless there's a store for it, a display window, a book cataloguing the products and a series of provocative posters that advertise content such as 'Nothing will make you happy': a promise of happiness that coincides with the impossibility of achieving it. Because everything here is nothing, and nothing has a price.
The 'Nothing™' project will be brought to life at GAM (the Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Turin), at MAMbo (the Bologna Museum of Modern Art), and at the brand's Via Melzo headquarters in Milan, as well as on social media and through a series of initiatives to promote emptiness in various different ways.
From crowds of riders pedalling with their deliveries of nothing, to vans unloading pallets of empty boxes meticulously labelled with 'Nothing™' branding in public and private spaces in Italy and worldwide, the project is a collective experience that invites the public to take part in the journey embarked on by nothing. No longer as passive spectators but as witnesses to a revelation, like the child who had the courage to shout out the truth to a world intent on congratulating the king for his non-existent clothes. Nothing™ is the king with no clothes who lays bare our certainties. It forces us to look beyond appearances, to recognise the beauty of absence, and to question ourselves about the nature of value, about our addiction to objects that mask our existential emptiness. And ultimately about the fear of this vertigo.
So 'A life full of Nothing™' can be an invitation to think about their own freedom. Emptiness challenges us every day, in every moment. The way forward is to engage with it fearlessly so that it doesn't take control of us.
Artist, graphic designer, publisher, Federico Pepe (born 1976 in Omegna, Italy, lives and works in Milano) is a singular figure in the Italian cultural and artistic landscape. He runs Le Dictateur project, an editorial platform and independent exhibition space in Milan. He exhibited at
MoMA Library and Family Business, New York, Tate Modern, London, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Triennale Milano... He collaborates regularly with artists such as Maurizio Cattelan, Pierpaolo Ferrari (Toilet Paper), Nico Vascellari, Jacopo Benassi, etc.
