Catalog Ogni favola è un gioco

GIUSEPPE VENEZIANO, one of the leading figures of New Pop and Italian Newbrow, is the protagonist of EVERY FAIRY TALE IS A GAME, his highly anticipated solo show at PUNTO SULL’ARTE Gallery.

Veneziano has long pursued a form of painting that absorbs pre-existing images and transforms them into new iconographic combinations and original stories, conveyed through a visual language that blends Western tradition with contemporary popular culture. In this new exhibition, the theme of fairy tales—often filtered through Disney’s cinematic reinterpretations—takes center stage, becoming a visual theatre where the apparent innocence of its characters clashes with adult codes of religion, social norms, and current events.

The title of the show, borrowed from a 1983 song by Edoardo Bennato, suggests the idea that fairy tales can function as narrative systems capable of revealing the ambiguous and contradictory nature of society. In this sense, Veneziano revitalizes—through painting—a tradition that spans music, literature, folklore, and the visual arts, transforming the fairy tale into a parable of contemporary anxieties as well as hidden desires and impulses.

Among the artist’s recurring protagonists is Snow White, whom Veneziano turns into a cultural fetish reflecting shifts in collective behavior. In the works on display, the Disney princess appears in unexpected, unsettling roles: a vengeful heroine in The Slaughter of the Innocents (2022), a sensual and contemporary figure in Selfica (2021), an ironic dominatrix in Fifty Shades of Pippo (2022). Pinocchio also makes several appearances, such as in Madonna of Lies (2022) or Venus of Collodi (2023), where his image intertwines with Renaissance tradition and classical iconography.

Little Red Riding Hood and Alice likewise become emblematic figures of an imaginary projected into the present, as in Into the Wolf’s Mouth (2023), which evokes the symbolic and psychoanalytic roots of the fairy tale, or in Alice Wonder Social (2025), where Carroll’s sense of wonder morphs into digital scrolling.

The paintings dialogue with three-dimensional and installation works, such as The Murder of Grumpy (2021) or Innocent Evasions (2015), confirming the artist’s narrative and pop-oriented vision. Throughout, Veneziano’s style remains direct and unmistakable: flat color fields, sharp outlines, and vivid hues create an apparent clarity that, far from simplifying, becomes a tool of disruption and ironic revelation.

With Every Fairy Tale is a Game, Veneziano shows us fairy tales freed from their pedagogical function—transformed into allegories of contemporary life, emblematic figures of a modern human comedy.