UNDICI  = XI 

Marco Pagani’s practice is rooted in a profound appreciation of the everyday. Sports, food, and landscapes form the subject matter of much of his work, yet the approachability of the quotidian is coupled with a visually and conceptually nuanced approach, equally informed by art history as it is by Pagani’s personal history. 

After a successful decade-long practice in textile design, Pagani ultimately transitioned to the visual arts out of a desire to more fully express the complexity of his emotions and the breadth of his interests, which range widely from athletics—particularly soccer—to art history to Japanese animation. In fact, the artist credits his first formative experiences with color to be his childhood viewings of Captain Tsubasa, the popular 1980s manga series about an 11-year-old boy who dreams of winning the FIFA World Cup for Japan. Inspired by the aesthetic language of these animated programs, Pagani’s recent work references many visual qualities from manga, specifically its vibrant color palettes, close cropping techniques, and flattened graphics. 

Born and raised in Italy, Pagani also draws inspiration from his cultural heritage, specifically the low-relief technique used by the ancient Romans. Featuring sculptural elements carved out of flat surfaces, low relief artworks historically depicted dramatic narrative scenes occupied by war heroes, mythological characters, and political leaders. Pagani adapts this classical technique to a contemporary context informed by his passion for soccer, meticulously carving players, jerseys, and Internazionale Milano tickets out of foam. These panels, closely cropped to heighten the intensity of the gestures they depict, are then hand-painted in brightly colored acrylics, resulting in a series that is deeply referential to art history yet refreshingly lighthearted in nature and subject matter. 

This tension between the naive and the rigorous runs throughout Pagani’s other bodies of work, which include powder-coated aluminum sculptures resembling trophies. This series was inspired by Luigi Ghirri’s color photographs of beachside summer playgrounds, which foreground the architectural and poetic qualities of swings, jungle gyms, and volleyball nets. Ghirri’s visual treatment of these everyday objects transforms them into nostalgic objects of desire — an effect that particularly resonates with Pagani, whose childhood memories with soccer took place in similar oceanside settings. Pagani’s aluminum sculptures similarly elevate trophies, which function as objects of desire for athletes, by accentuating their aesthetic value.  By removing them from their athletic context, enlarging their scale, and rendering them with vibrantly colored geometric forms — again, drawing inspiration from the animated language of manga — the artist emphasizes trophies’ sculptural and visual qualities, which are often overshadowed by their function as symbols of victory.