LAKAPOLIESIS | Works by Matteo Cibic

On the occasion of MiArt and Milan Design Week 2025, Fondazione Luigi Rovati presents in the Art Pavilion and in the garden -from March 26 to April 13- a body of unpublished works by Matteo Cibic (1983) in the exhibition Lakapoliesis. The exhibition explores the plant world through experimental languages, the result of research that redefines sculpture as a tool to enhance plants and tree details, often in a monumental key, tracing the evolution of Cibic's poetics from 2017 to the present.

 

In order to give life to the works that make up the exhibition Lakapoliesis, Matteo Cibic has created three-dimensional chromatic cartographies and large-scale plant compositions, interpreting emotions and feelings that the artist attributes to plants. Protagonists of the exhibition are sculptures made of wood, recycled aluminum, marble dust and knotted wool, which give shape to a new “plant nomenclature” through a fresh and asymmetric narrative. In the Fondazione's garden, two large-scale recycled aluminum sculptures, made with the support of CIAL (Consorzio Nazionale Imballaggi Alluminio), tell the story of this material's ability to endure over time and its ability to be reborn in multiple guises.

Alongside the new works, the exhibition at the Art Pavilion includes an excerpt from Dermapoliesis (2017), an earlier project in which Cibic imagines a future in which plants are capable of releasing scents and products that have already been processed, through a series of prototypes of hybrid and futuristic plants that tell of hypothetical new production and distribution systems.

The comparison between the two projects highlights the evolution of the artist's interest in the plant world: from a tool at the service of man that optimizes its production and distribution, to a mysterious object that operates in times and spaces beyond his control.

Matteo Cibic (Parma, 1983) explores the world with his art, and imagines utopian futures. Through his sculptural practice, he imbues everyday objects with a soul and personality, treating them as characters between the animate and the inanimate. For more than a decade he has conducted sociological research on colors and objects, investigating how they shape our daily lives.