Michelangelo is a visual artist and writer from Italy, born in 1999.
His practice is grounded in experimental publishing and printmaking. Michelangelo’s work is informed by and strongly positioned in a radical queer and neurodivergent perspective and mainly focuses on designed hegemonic violence and all the shapes it can take, as well as counter-violence, exclusion as self defense, the development of alternative spaces and means of existence, and erased or hidden histories.

He’s interested in alternative methods of publication and archival praxis, exploring what visibility entails for specific communities and how to keep the access to certain information restricted when needed.

Through techniques of fragmentation, self-censorship, outspoken visuals and writing, he dives into social analysis, perverting it through the lens of queer theory with a focus on concepts of failure and resistance –and a good dose of irony.

m.magnini.3@gmail.com

My practice results from the exigency of making works that encapsulate both current states of existence and the possible ways around them. I’ve been trying to dissect and analyse the social and political structures surrounding me, and the way they shape individual subjects and our interactions. My aim is to try and pervert social analysis with a focus on concepts of failure, resistance, (self) censorship and consumption of information. All of this stems from the urgency instigated by the far right militarisation of the West, coupled with an hysterical capitalistic stage and the consequent inhumane actions that it requires to uphold power.

My methodology is to approach making as a never-ending collage of connected layers, in which nothing can exist without the surrounding network and context. I’ve been focusing on the relationships between violence, desire, unorthodox bodies, and public/private spaces. More specifically, on the manner in which spaces can store collective memories and passage of time, recording unofficial histories and acting as off-the-records archives. In my belief, one’s perspective and experiences can shape the way they interact with their surrounding. This brought me to expand on pivotal topics in aesthetic analysis and amongst queer and crip theorists, such as queer orientations and ways of seeing.

I’m interested in traditional and alternative methods of publication and archival praxis, exploring what visibility entails for specific groups and how to keep the access to certain information restricted when needed. I’ve been keen on exploring obfuscation and self-censorship with a specific fluidity regarding to the context in which my work is presented or distributed, employing layered meanings. I implement printmaking– appreciating the duality of a fine arts production being able to distribute and duplicate data– as well as collaging techniques, which allow me to infiltrate or take over spaces and contexts, creating complicated and contrasting multi-layered narratives. Because of this, I’ve also integrated textiles and acts of sewing/putting together, besides from cutting and pasting. Such gestures allow me to attribute different meanings to existing data exploiting their physical vicinity to other pieces of information, showing their connections, as well as highlighting a process of “putting back together”.
Ultimately, my practice does space in numerous techniques, adapting to the time and space in which it exists and is being presented, not limited to printed matter but also to video production, collective events, installations, and other realms of visual arts.