New Geometries of Existence
Reflections, doubling, the body moving back and forth: gestures split, unravel, and break down into fragments. Antonio Della Guardia begins with a rigorous analysis of proxemics in workplace environments and structures of power, exposing and subverting their underlying logic to set the body—and, with it, the imagination—free. His practice unfolds through a constant tension between two opposing forces: the cool formal precision inherited from corporate protocols and neoliberal mechanisms of control, and the almost childlike tenderness of gestures that inhabit his works as acts of poetic sabotage. At this intersection, a gradual emancipation from the demands of contemporary productivity begins to emerge.
In the series Permanent Illusion, fragments of pyrite weigh down Polaroid photographs depicting the commanding gestures of international leaders. The hands of power are exposed in the mirror: splitting and multiplying, they shed their authoritarian intent and morph into spiders, wings, eyes blinking with exaggerated intensity, and strange, many-legged creatures. As time passes, the images fade from the Polaroids, leaving traces on the surface of the stone. The pyrite thus absorbs and internalizes the gestures, evoking the unconscious ways in which power dynamics are assimilated. Known as “fool’s gold” for its golden sheen, pyrite has misled generations of prospectors who, believing they had struck gold, were left disappointed upon discovering its lack of commercial value. Today, the mineral stands as a symbol of false wealth and unfulfilled hopes. Here, it becomes a metaphor for the illusion of leadership: a seductive decoy, a promise of future happiness that remains just out of reach.
The use of counterpoint as an aesthetic strategy returns in Know Not To Be – 3, a performance presented at the Rome Quadriennale. The electric-blue suits worn by two twin performers stand in stark contrast to the rigid lines of a nineteenth-century white-marble staircase. They move repeatedly through the space, one descending as the other ascends. Mirroring one another, they synchronize their movements until they meet halfway, where their encounter turns confrontational: like wild animals, they face off, threatening one another with grotesque, contorted grimaces. Drawing on the animal world, Della Guardia stages the dynamics of domination and submission that shape professional environments, as well as the possibilities of evading them evoked by the soft, collective fluttering that brings the action to a close.
The performers, along with their blue suits, reappear in a photographic series set in the Teatro Quaroni at Borgo La Martella, in southern Italy. Built as part of a redevelopment project aimed at improving the living conditions of agricultural workers, this Neorealist settlement embodies an early attempt to bring architecture and social emancipation into dialogue. At its heart, the theater functions as a kind of “covered square,” expressing a vision of architecture as an integrated whole: beyond providing farmworkers with housing and land, the settlement sought to guarantee their access to culture, art, and social life. Della Guardia transforms this politically charged setting into a laboratory of gestures, beginning to explore the imaginative possibilities that emerge from the encounter between bodies and architecture.
This line of inquiry finds a new direction in Nuevas Geometrías de Existencia, an ongoing project that explores the relationship between the body and the industrial architecture of the factories built worldwide by Italian entrepreneur Adriano Olivetti. Integrated into their surroundings and filled with natural light, these buildings bring rationalist rigor into dialogue with social utopianism. Their production spaces are organized around libraries and nurseries, reflecting an enlightened model of entrepreneurship in which beauty and collective care are understood as fundamental to workers’ dignity. In the exhibition, the project takes shape through a large-scale image and preparatory drawings for the performance, whose imaginative and emancipatory movements respond to the geometries of the Olivetti factories in Ivrea and Pozzuoli (Italy).
Benedetta Casini
*During his residency at PROA21, Antonio Della Guardia continues the research related to the project Nuevas Geometrías de Existencia, focusing on the characteristics of the Olivetti factory in Merlo (Argentina). This investigation will translate into a performative action scheduled for October 24th.
Nuevas Geometrías de Existencia
by Antonio Della Guardia
Curated by
Benedetta Casini
Produced by
studioconcreto
In collaboration with
PROA21
Promoted by
Istituto Italiano di Cultura de Buenos Aires
Realized with the support of
Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture, under the Italian Council program (14th edition, 2025).
Permanent Illusion, 2025 10 sculptures
Polaroid and pyrite
The sculptural nucleus of Permanent Illusion stems from an analysis of politicians’ gestures, used as a form of communication capable of amplifying and manipulating verbal messages during public appearances. The sculptures are composed of fifteen pyrite minerals and an equal number of Polaroids depicting authoritative gestures performed by heads of state from various nations during their public appearances. Each image of the leaders’ hands is mirrored on the mineral’s surface, generating a reflection that alters both the anatomy and the sense of action.
The works arise from the hybridization of two elements that present two visions with an intrinsically discordant temporality, destined to evolve differently over time. On one side, the Polaroid, with a fragile and transitory image destined to gradually fade; on the other, pyrite, a durable mineral that reflects and mutates the gesture, ideally imprinting it over time on its mirrored surface. Permanent illusion thus takes shape as the grafting of a new anatomical perception, capable of projecting itself towards a potentially infinite temporal dimension, in which the refraction of a new communicative imagery opens up the possibility of a different future visual and symbolic dimension.
Know Not to Be – 3, 2025
Video performance
20’
Know Not to Be – 3, 2025
Photographs, print on paper
33 x 22 cm
The performance Know Not to Be – 3, conceived for the 18th Quadrennial of art, stems from an investigation of creative training practices used in corporate work environments, focusing on the interpenetration of theatrical practices and the corporate environment in reference to Business Theatre. This practice is based on the application of theatrical techniques aimed at enhancing employees’ behavioral performance in communication and leadership. Drawing on this research, the performance presented internal staircase of the building analyzes a branch of Business Theatre, focusing on the references and behavioural approaches of the animal world, which specifically explore the dynamics between prey and predator, attack and defence, action and reaction. These aspects are reworked in the performance through two twin performers, who, in conjunction with a specially created soundtrack, articulate a close dialogue of imaginative physical and spatial actions. A dynamic of the double in which encounter and conflict continually merge and intertwine, until they culminate in an attempt at liberation, or perhaps emancipation, that remains suspended and never fully accomplished. In connection with the performance, 12 photographs were presented in the exhibition room, each representing the two performers’ key poses during the performance. The photographs were taken inside the theater of La Martella, a historic neorealist village near Matera (Italy) built in the 1950s at the behest of Adriano Olivetti by Ludovico Quaroni, Michele Valori, Federico Gorio, Piero Maria Lugli and Luigi Agati to house Matera’s agricultural workers. The theater, deliberately designed without seats, invited each resident to bring their own chair from home, along with the story of their workday, so as to build the principles of a healthy community through sharing and discussion. The performance’s poses, in relation to the theatrical space, spark a dialogue between past and present, between the memory of a theater dedicated to collective cultural growth and its contemporary projection, in which theatrical dynamics are used as tools for efficiency and economic productivity. This transformation of times prompts reflection on the subordination of the contemporary body and the need to find a new state of existence.
New Geometries of Existence (Pozzuoli - Ivrea), 2026
Performance design plans
Antonio Della Guardia’s drawings function as visual scores of movement: notations of gesture, space, and the relationships between bodies that rehearse imaginary movements intended to dismantle the authoritarian gestures of the corporate and work environment. Each sheet encodes specific actions—pointing a finger, mirroring each other, coming together, forming a butterfly—constructing an imaginative gestural lexicon.
New Geometries of Existence (Pozzuoli - Ivrea), 2026
Paper print
The performance project New Geometries of Existence, winner of the 14th edition of the Italian Council and currently under research, explores the relationships between architecture, the body, and the dynamics of work. It begins with an analysis of the Olivetti industrial complexes in Ivrea and Pozzuoli (Italy), and subsequently extends to international contexts such as Buenos Aires (Argentina) and São Paulo (Brazil). The performance represents the first public presentation of the research, translating into choreography, in conjunction with sound and video, reflections on the cultural and social legacy of the Olivetti model, a humanistic ideal founded on the harmony between production, quality of life, and the centrality of the individual.
Through its exploration of performance, sound, and video, the project opens a space for reflection on the political and symbolic value of industrial architecture and the role it can still play in designing new work environments, more attentive to subjectivity, the quality of time, and contemporary forms of existence.