Elisabetta Di Maggio: Frangibile

Curated by Chiara Bertola and Fabio Cafagna, “Frangibile” by Elisabetta Di Maggio unfolds on the first floor of GAM, presenting a comprehensive overview of the artist’s practice through historical works and new site-specific pieces. At the core of Di Maggio’s art is cutting — a gesture that embodies both care and violence, precision and irreversibility. Her works, including walls of incised tissue paper, soaps carved into city maps, wax and glass mosaics, porcelain fragments, botanical forms, and mandalas made of postage stamps, dissolve the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, nature and artifice.

The exhibition opens with “Annunciazione” (2025), featuring two dragonfly wings in oxidised copper, and concludes with the video “Desiderale” (2006), where cuts on film evoke a celestial constellation. Across six rooms, visitors encounter themes of mapping, cosmic and botanical geometry, memory, and the sacredness of nature. Perceptual instability and sensory immersion — through scent, sound, and contemplation — guide the experience, revealing Di Maggio’s meditative fascination with the fragile order of the world.