The collective sense of the visual arts is not the exclusive preserve of Relational Art, quite the contrary. Participation in expressive creation draws its significance from the essence of art itself, because art is language and, as such, essentially manifests itself through a dialogical exchange. From pure communicative functionality, however, the metaphysical predisposition of representation emerged instantly (or consciously?), giving visual language – or rather, the trace – a shared formal idealisation: the image. Wherever there is the imprint of a palm, the spectre of the hand that touched it instantly materialises.
David Reimondo, “Mi piace sparare”, installation view at The Open Box, Milano, ph. courtesy the artist and The Open Box
Through his personal and technical experience in the field of cinema, David Reimondo (born in Genoa, 1973) recaptures that collective sense that is fundamental to creation, and he develops a body of work aimed at deconstructing established forms of language in order to reshape new grammars of meaning. The performance-in-progress curated by Mirco Marino, developed for The Open Box, a non-profit art space located in Milan, is an excellent example of the creative process behind Reimondo’s work, where sharing is also expressed through time. The exhibition, entitled Mi piace sparare (I Like Shooting), which can be viewed by appointment until 13 May 2026, takes shape within the compact, striking space of a Milanese block of flats’ garage: from the day of the opening, under the artist’s supervision, two assistants will periodically print phrases extracted from a conversation between the curator and the artist onto the walls of the garage, using small inkjet printers that closely resemble a handgun.
David Reimondo, “Mi piace sparare”, installation view at The Open Box, Milano, ph. courtesy the artist and The Open Box
The sense of synchronicity created in the presence of an audience, particularly when viewed as a symbiosis between thought, writing and reading, aligns with the use of the word as a metaphor for art itself – term that is conceptually indefinable yet intuitively grasped by people, and widely understood. By breaking free from the symbol, Reimondo’s performance seeks to codify the morphology of language using, nevertheless, the principles of language itself, in a sort of formal intensification where expressive terms, radicalised in their multisensory nature, end up re-creating continuous meanings that are alien to their own origin while still integrating it. Cooperation within the performance takes place both passively – with the audience member free to interpret the work as they see fit – and actively, as the performers must literally work together to fill the entire space.
David Reimondo, “Mi piace sparare”, installation view at The Open Box, Milano, ph. courtesy the artist and The Open Box
This immanent and hyperreal artistic production is not dissimilar to the philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s interpretation of Alfred Jarry’s Pataphysics (or the ‘Science of Imaginary Solutions’), in which reality – irrefutably simulated and devoted to consumption – coincides with its own representation. Conveying concepts from the wider world in order to strip language down to its bare essentials is central to David Reimondo’s artistic process. His inspired insight centres on the awareness of repetition as an analytical method for aesthetic purposes. This semantic ‘delving’ inevitably leads back to the origin of the word, and thus to the possibility of reinventing it. As the critic Ilaria Bernardi has rightly observed, Reimondo’s artistic practice is neither digressive nor self-indulgent, but rather maieutic: anyone can follow a similar path to achieve, through aesthetic experience, their own sense of awareness and add meaning. This happens in Cinema, where the shared experience gives rise to constant and ongoing semiotic reinterpretations, as well as bringing cinema itself to life (without the mutual collaboration of diverse sensibilities, the Seventh Art would not exist); the same is true of all the arts, although it must be acknowledged that their linguistic efficacy is sometimes lost.
David Reimondo, “Mi piace sparare”, installation view at The Open Box, Milano, ph. courtesy the artist and The Open Box
Mi piace sparare despite its disorganised appearance, it actually manages to strike just the right balance between a collective authorial voice and a compelling sense of engagement – an ordered chaos that does not preclude an intelligible, avowedly poetic logic; a miniature Library of Babel, to quote Jorge Luis Borges.
Info:
David Reimondo. Mi piace sparare
curated by Mirco Marino
Coordination: Gaspare Luigi Marcone
13/04/2026 – 13/05/2026
The Open Box
Via Pergolesi 6, 20124 Milano
By appointment
www.theopenbox.org
Luca Sposato was born in Tirano, Valtellina, in February 1986, he lives in Prato working in the Florentine metropolitan plain (Pistoia-Prato-Florence). Art historian, critic and curator of art and xylograph. He has curated exhibitions in private galleries, international fairs and public installations, both in Italy and abroad, including a review in historic buildings of Pistoia and the scenography of a musical show at the Textile Museum of Prato. He writes for various magazines both in print and online. His critical research starting from the art graphics, parallel practiced, focuses on the traced, physical and semiotic sign, expanding the study to the time synchronization between past and present, and cultivating curatorial practice as an artistic medium.
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