Contemorary Sculpture Exhibition in Venice

San Polo Art Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Between Matter and Symbols, taking place on May 17, 2025, in Venice

The group show brings together works by Daniele Accossato, Beppe Borella, Dario Tironi, and Valeria Vaccaro—four contemporary Italian sculptors who, while working with different materials and languages, share a common focus on the figure, on materiality, and on the evocative power of the image. Ranging from silent angelologies and pop archaeologies to post-industrial relics, the artworks explore the persistence and transformation of symbols within contemporary culture.

Daniele Accossato presents a series of sculptures that evoke archetypal and spiritual iconographies: artworks held captive by modernity, enclosed in industrial crates like winged creatures stripped of their freedom. Sacred objects are transformed into merchandise, simulacra imprisoned by the logic of ownership.

Beppe Borella carves marble to depict figures drawn from mass culture and childhood play, elevating them through the noble material of classical sculpture. His toy soldiers and miniature tanks, though playful and ironic, become apotropaic fetishes—nostalgic relics of a bygone childhood or talismans to ward off the chaos of adult life.

Dario Tironi constructs figures using recycled and repurposed materials: electronics, gadgets, and fragments of consumer society. His works are hybrid organisms—witnesses to an era of accumulation and waste—that raise ecological, social, and existential questions.

Valeria Vaccaro sculpts everyday objects of the past from marble, concealing their stony nature with illusionistic mastery that recalls ancient alchemical processes. The theme of combustion, a recurring element in her work, marks the objects with the passage of time, suggesting decay and memory’s
transfiguration.