From September 8th to 15th, for the third consecutive year, Milan hosted the Michele Cea Award, an artistic event promoted by the Michele Cea Foundation –founded, as President Nicola Cea states, as a life project. It's strange to think that such an idea could arise after such a sad event as the death of a child – Cea continues. On July 22nd, 2015, Michele's heart stopped beating; he was only 27 years old and had a brilliant artistic career ahead of him. Thanks to his highly original pictorial, plastic, and conceptual expression, attentive to the condition of the individual, after sociological and psychological studies, Michele had dedicated himself to figurative art, pushing towards an intense conceptualism, inspired by the complexity of the human condition in the modern world. His death brought my wife and I to the abyss of despair; he was our only child, our most precious possession, and the first months were an indescribable nightmare. "And yet it is precisely from his death, from this enigma that scares even the thought, that the project for a Foundation dedicated to him was born, one that would carry on his name, his art, and that of dozens of other young artists like Michele, eager to explore, share, and broaden their horizons in a continuous engagement with the world. " From such a painful event, yet one that always had a smile engraved in our hearts, " continues Lina Bavaro, Vice President of the Foundation, " we decided to bring this project to life, to continue the path Michele had undertaken, through the dissemination and diffusion of his unique stylistic, conceptual, and social research, and by giving space and visibility to the many young artists who wish to showcase their works, exhibit them, and meet other colleagues." The Foundation's activities, in fact, are not limited to the Prize alone, which remains the flagship event of the entire annual program, which grows richer each year. For the Foundation, art is a commitment, an opportunity, an exercise in observation and sharing; it is the place of memory and the future. The CEA Foundation's small, yet powerful project draws all its energy from Michele's indelible memory, but also from the goal of pursuing the dreams of the young man who passed away, through the promotion of new artistic initiatives, giving many young artists eager for the future a true role as protagonists. Supporting the commitment and dedication of Michele's parents, who promote the Foundation's activities, are art critic Massimiliano Porro and artist Elisabetta Piccirillo. "The Michele Cea Award," says Porro, " is aimed at young artists up to the age of 40 in the visual arts, from painting and sculpture to video art, photography, and installations." This year, 71 artists residing in Italy participated in the selection process, resulting in 12 finalists. A distinctive feature, as in previous years, was the absence of a specific theme, allowing for complete freedom of expression without constraints. The quality and intrinsic strength of the works emerged powerfully in Michele's memory, without ever imitating his work. For the 2019 edition, the Award will also be open to young artists who are not resident in Italy: a way to better disseminate the Foundation's goals and activities, and Michele's name. The winner of the 2018 Michele Cea Award, an event held this year at the Ex Fornace Gola in Milan under the patronage of Comune 6 and the Cariplo Foundation, was Elisa Baldissera with the work Overfishing #2 (L'urlo), followed by Gloria Veronica Lavagnini and Fabio D'Agostino in third place.

BURIED PORTS

The abyss is within us and outside of us (Emil Cioran)

The dark, deep abyss swallows souls and opens the gates of the abyss, raising a silent cry. Like a shipwrecked vessel drifting adrift, the cry for help sails toward the shore of our gaze. Elisa Baldissera's installation carries a bitter message, full of suffering and faint hope, immersed in that sea, now a lifeless liquid, soaked in oil and filth, veering toward a dark blue. It is the final act, the swan song of the Tunabox – Art in a Box: a journey to stir consciences and to listen. A discourse in which art and ecology go hand in hand, sending out Mother Nature's S.O.S. The marine environment, emptied of its population, is now filled with waste; intensive fishing—overfishing—has destroyed the welcoming home that once lay hidden among the waves, offering a terrifying portrait of contemporary human degeneration. Elisa has combined different levels of interpretation, rendering the Munch-like cry of the fish at the center of the can a blend of sonic and visual expressionism. The artist's original intuition blends with the visual impact, the manual assembly of resins and materials, culminating in the heart beating and thundering, generating an emotional vortex. The net stifles breathing, suffocates, and captures with its weaves, leaving no escape. It tells, to paraphrase Italo Calvino, of a sea that yesterday was a murky cloudbed at the edge of the sky, becoming a strip of ever-thickening darkness, and now is a great blue cry beyond a balustrade of hills and houses. And on that blue cry, today, night has fallen: the sleep of reason breeds monsters…

Massimiliano Porro