Tales from Fractured Minds examines and dissects the personal and identity-based memory of seven young artists. At a time when the body has become a political terrain and identity appears constantly reshaped and distorted by external forces, memory acquires its own dignity and autonomy, transforming into a living organism and a pure expression of human feeling.

AA.VV., “Tales from Fractured Minds”, 2026, installation view, works by Tatjana Danneberg and Hanna Antonsson, courtesy of the artists and The Address, ph. Alberto Favara

Greeting the viewer at the entrance of The Address is Weekends and Beginnings by Austrian artist Tatjana Danneberg. Through the collection of snapshots and impressions of everyday objects and fleeting moments, she constructs a rich low-fi archive: the photographic instant captures a moment, yet cannot return it to the thread of the present without deforming it through the filter of memory. The artist merges photography and painting through an almost ritual use of chalk and pigment, allowing fragments of recollection to surface as residues of a vanished instant. The image liquefies, becoming malleable, recomposed through the artist’s body and gesture. The concept of past life is explored under a cold and grotesque light by Swedish Hanna Antonsson in Autowing XX: a black tire stands out against the immaculate walls and the delicate tiled floor of the entrance. Upon closer inspection, a taxidermied jackdaw emerges from its rim and, when activated by a switch, slowly moves its wings. This gesture, both funerary and ritualistic, simulates the natural dynamism of flight. Antonsson stages, through two common yet highly symbolic elements – animal and machine – the victim-executioner dichotomy, locked together in a simultaneously parodic and uncanny performance.

Ant Łakomsk, “Zuzanna”, 2026, courtesy of the artist and The Address, ph. Alberto Favara

The uncanny also subtly permeates Girl 9 and Zuzanna by Polish Ant Łakomsk: images set in distant urban scenarios (graffiti, railings, anonymous architectures) that become at once spaces of protection and constraint. Figures with long dark hair appear, often depicted from behind, their faces obscured by veils: silent self-portraits of the artist herself. The indeterminacy of the figures and the unusual spatiality evoke long walks or afternoons spent in a neighborhood park, ordinary moments recalled with a sense of melancholy. The images oscillate between self-representation and anonymity, suggesting a fragile identity continually redefined through its relationship with inhabited space. In Zuzanna, the décadrage of the crouching figure in the corner of the canvas initially escapes notice: completely off-center and positioned low, her posture conveys a condition of isolation and solitude. Solitude shifts into alienation and paranoia in Untitled V by Polina Sokova. Together with Untitled IV, the artist uproots everyday objects from their context, transforming them into icons reminiscent of Domenico Gnoli, while introducing – perhaps unconsciously – a sense of domestic paranoia rooted in a post-Soviet sensibility.

AA.VV., “Tales from Fractured Minds”, 2026, installation view, works by Bartosz Kowal, Linda Lach, Tatjana Danneberg, courtesy of the artists and The Address, ph. Alberto Favara

Bartosz Kowal asserts his presence in the gallery’s vault space with Glass. Its acid green, cinematic tone, recalling Wong Kar-Wai’s Fallen Angels, collides with the softness of a delicately half-open eyelid. The painting is framed by two works by Linda Lach, Mutex thread /1/ and Parallel decomposition, who employs unusual materials in her object-sculptures, blending the organic and the synthetic: resin is paired with latex, silicone, steel; skin with medical instruments. The result is both captivating and unsettling, pricking at the viewer’s stomach. One cannot help but sense the trace of an identity fractured and altered from the outside, a hollowed corporeality drawn from the artist’s own history, needling us like a fine instrument piercing living flesh.

Linda Lach, “Mutex thread /1/”, 2025, courtesy of the artist and The Address, ph. Alberto Favara

Tales from Fractured Minds is intimate yet disorienting: the thread connecting the works is fragmented memory, yet each artist approaches the theme in a disconnected and deeply personal way, prompting us to question the true meaning of memory and the extent to which it can be manipulated to articulate who we are. The exhibition unfolds as an uneven journey through the labyrinths of the artists’ minds, who, consciously or not, lay themselves bare in their vulnerability.

Info:

VV.AA. Tales from Fractured Minds
curated by Matteo Giovanelli
21/02/2026 – 29/03/2026
The Address
Via Felice Cavallotti, 5, Brescia
theaddressgallery.com

Chiara Conforti

Chiara has completed her degree in Graphic Design and Communication and previously worked as an art gallery assistant, where she developed a strong passion for art writing. She currently contributes to Arteismo, a digital platform dedicated to art, cinema, and photography. Writing serves as a means to explore new perspectives, enhance critical thinking, and deepen insight into contemporary visual culture.