The pictorial research of Giuditta Branconi deliberately presents itself as a challenge to solve an enigma—one that, rather than resolving itself once the key is found, instead unfolds and spirals outward into a multiplicity of possibilities, signs, and meanings. What is written in small letters across the large environmental work If you followed the breadcrumbs (you’d never get back here) encapsulates and concludes this trajectory, almost like a neural network of visual art.
What are the breadcrumbs Branconi offers us? In keeping with her characteristic visual language, they consist of a blend of symbols and forms, material elements and perceptual dimensions that challenge the very definition—and even the role—of the artwork.
Branconi is no stranger to an excess of virtuosity, a tool as versatile as it is sharp in her struggle—indeed, her battle—against conventions. The breadcrumbs, an element both ordinary and deeply symbolic, function simultaneously as clues and representations.
Like a magic lantern or a play of shadow puppets, fairy-tale animals emerge from words or graphemes in a mixture of languages and scripts. One may inhabit things physically—those of life, personal history, or collective memory—or observe them from the outside, as spectators who are no less involved.
The work was created within the cycle of works that make up the exhibition Cannon Fodder, a title that raises a fundamental question: are we, the viewers, the “expendable bodies”? Or are the symbolic elements—constructed and handed down over time, yet now seemingly slipping out of control—being used, or rather exploited, to confine us to a secondary role within history and culture? Two sides of the same question, or rather, of the same canvas.
Rabbits (from Alice), robins (echoing a Disney-like dream), bows, flower petals… these are only some of the elements that, rather than fully emerging or breaking free from the many layers of paint, appear instead rarefied, almost merely sketched. Amid fragments of comics or song lyrics, the human figure—seen from behind or in profile—remains motionless, if not pressed down to the ground.
Oil painting on linen, together with the reassuring palette of yellow, orange, pink, and light blue in varying intensities, invites us into a landscape that intrigues us with its fairy-tale tones—yet, as in the best fairy tales, soon reveals its darker side.
To follow or not to follow the breadcrumbs can be read as a displacement of the Hamlet-like doubt, carrying an implicit call to action: it is up to us to attempt the ascent of the mountain, aware that deciphering the present is an oxymoron. Our possibility—and responsibility, no less obscure—is simply to live it.
Giuditta Branconi
Cannon Fodder
Collezione Maramotti
Until July 26, 2026
Giuditta Branconi, Cannon Fodder, exhibition view
Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia
© Giuditta Branconi
Courtesy the artist; L.U.P.O Gallery, Milan
Ph. Dario Lasagni
Giuditta Branconi, Cannon Fodder, exhibition view
Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia
© Giuditta Branconi
Courtesy the artist; L.U.P.O Gallery, Milan
Ph. Dario Lasagni
14/03/26
