The decoding mechanisms that activate as soon as our gaze falls upon an image function through perceptual automatisms sedimented over centuries of visual education: by virtue of their instantaneous activation, we are able to recognize forms, attribute depth, distinguish planes, without this process requiring any conscious effort, as if vision were a natural and neutral act rather than a complex and historically determined cultural construction. Disrupting this illusion of immediacy and undermining at its roots the unconditional trust we place in our perceptual capacities is the cornerstone of Luca Moscariello’s pictorial experimentation, which in the solo exhibition Sublimi incertezze (Sublime uncertainties )currently on view at Kappa-Nöun in San Lazzaro di Savena (BO) presents the most recent results of his research, demonstrating a further leap in maturity and a new range of openings. The artist’s practice is configured as a careful phenomenological investigation of vision conducted through a methodical process of deconstructing the conventions that regulate our relationship with the painted image. Making use with ease of a vast sampling of painting’s most classic illusionistic devices, the artist here commits himself to revealing, in a highly productive paradox, the constitutive unreliability of seeing.
Luca Moscariello, “Sublimi incertezze”, installation view at Kappa-Nöun. From left to right: “Sinedrio”, 2025, oil and enamel on panel, 120×100 cm; “Quarta parete”, 2025, site-specific installation, iron, spray and oil, 130×110 cm (approx.); “Premura dell’alburno”, 2025, oil and enamel on panel, 120×100 cm
The exhibition unfolds as an articulated discourse on the deceptive nature of the gaze, forcing us to recognize how fragile the boundary is between what we see and what we believe we see. The exhibition path is composed of a double sequence of wall works that oscillate between painting and sculpture, in which behind every apparent evidence lies a trap where every certainty is systematically called into question. The works aligned on the larger wall, all medium-size, appear at first glance as minimal assemblages of ordinary materials: in Giostra (2025) and Sublimi incertezze (2025), the panels that open and close the sequence, two minimal ribbon-like aniconic sculptures seem to rest on a rudimentary wooden display, while Sinedrio (2025) and Premura dell’alburno (2025) present themselves as anti-rhetorical compositions of plywood and felt tiles, whose ostentatious banality is accentuated by discolorations, scratches or folds from wear. Everything seems so obvious that there would be a strong temptation to dismiss the vision with a quick glance, framing these works in standardized minimalist and Arte Povera categories, if it weren’t for an inexplicable enchantment that instigates deeper investigation. Approaching the works, one discovers, in fact, that none of the depicted elements possesses real material consistency and that every plastic thickness is actually a pure illusion obtained through skillful shading that confers volume and substance to marks obstinately confined to the pictorial surface.
Luca Moscariello, “Recita delle astuzie n.1”, 2025, oil and enamel on panel, 28×25 cm
The perceptual trap orchestrated by the artist functions on multiple levels, forcing the viewer into a continuous movement of advancing and retreating, into a visual and mental dance to get the ambiguous nature of these works. The essential geometric structures, reduced to the bone in their formal syntax, become the instrument through which Moscariello interrogates not so much the nature of painting but rather the tendency of the gaze to be captured by appearances and its willingness to believe what it sees without subjecting it to critical examination. In this sense, his strategy recalls that elaborated by artists like Ettore Spalletti or Paolo Masi to investigate the phenomenological dimension of chromatic and spatial perception, but Moscariello pushes the reasoning to the point of questioning not only the illusory nature of painting, but the pretension of our perceptual habits to provide us with direct and unmediated access to the reality of things. The virtuosity on the possible variations of the theme of simulated volume, this is the common thread linking the first series of works, reaches maximum conceptual intensity in the site-specific installation Quarta parete (2025) placed at the center. Here the recurring ribbon-like sculpture in the sequence truly appears in three-dimensional version, directly anchored to the wall on which the painted and real shadows of its constituent elements merge, without conflict, in an ironic demonstration that both can deceive the gaze with equal effectiveness. To make the deception optimal, the artist has studied with maniacal attention the arrangement of the works in the exhibition space and their relationship with natural and artificial light, conducting site visits at different times of the day to verify how different lighting conditions would modify their perception.
Luca Moscariello, “Sublimi incertezze”, installation view at Kappa-Nöun. From left to right: “Liriche celate”, 2025, wood, felt, iron, mirror and stone, 20x20x20 cm; “Liriche inattese”, 2025, oil, enamel and pencil on panel, 30×20 cm; “Liriche accudite”, 2025, wood, felt, iron, cement and stone, 12x15x20 cm (approx.); “Liriche svelate”, 2025, cement, wood, felt, iron and mirror, 25x20x20 cm
On the adjacent wall, Moscariello then presents a series of small-format sculpture-paintings that bring to its apex the tension between reality and representation inherent in his research: these are three-dimensional structures created by combining real and painted elements in a game of perceptual (and actual) mirrors that forces the viewers to continuously question the ontological status of what they are observing, decomposing it into its constituent parts. These precious Wunderkammer reactivate that dimension of wonder and amazement that should accompany every authentic encounter with a work of art, suggesting to us that only by slowing down and granting ourselves the possibility to observe carefully, to move around the work, to change perspective and distance, can we hope to go beyond the surface of things. Moscariello’s sophisticated visual traps, capturing us precisely at the moment when we believe we have understood them, attempt to make us more aware viewers by inducing a skeptical attitude toward immediate certainties, in radical counter-tendency to the dominant attitude of the contemporary gaze, forced to navigate daily in a sea of images that demand immediate attention without requiring true understanding. And it is precisely in this subtle form of resistance, as well as in the fascination for the infinite possibilities of painting, that uncertainty becomes sublime.
Info:
Luca Moscariello. Sublimi incertezze
27/11/2025 – 15/01/2026
Critical text: Marinella Paderni
Kappa-Nöun
Via Imelde Lambertini 5, San Lazzaro di Savena (BO)
instagram.com/kappa_noun
Graduated in art history at DAMS in Bologna, city where she continued to live and work, she specialized in Siena with Enrico Crispolti. Curious and attentive to the becoming of the contemporary, she believes in the power of art to make life more interesting and she loves to explore its latest trends through dialogue with artists, curators and gallery owners. She considers writing a form of reasoning and analysis that reconstructs the connection between the artist’s creative path and the surrounding context.
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