Off the Ground, an exhibition curated by Michele Spinelli at the Fondazione Pino Pascali, presents the work of photographer and artist Attilio Solzi.

At the heart of the exhibition is The Absence, a series developed by the artist over the course of a year: 365 days, with one photograph taken each day along the Paullese state road between Milan and Cremona. At the centre of the images is a plastic chair placed at a crossroads, and everything it evokes without ever showing it directly. Here, absence becomes presence, and representation. An empty chair, its changing positions, its deterioration, and the changing vegetation and landscape surrounding it become a trace and tangible testimony of those who live on the margins—present, yet invisible.
The body never appears in the images, yet its traces and signs of its passage are unmistakable. It is precisely through these traces that the photographs become metaphorical and indirect portraits of a specific existential, social, and political condition.
This absence, this constant sense of suspension, documents what we cannot see and, at the same time, what we do not want to see. The Absence prompts us to ask who placed that chair there, what purpose it serves, and why it is important enough to be tied to a pole, almost as if to ensure its presence. It leads us to question who lives on the margins and to confront the deafening silence of their presence.

Date: from October 10 to November 15, 2026
More Info: Fondazione Pino Pascali

Image: © Attilio Solzi, The Absence (series), 2019-2020, courtesy METRONOM

02/10/26