Ogni favola è un gioco | Giuseppe Veneziano

OGNI FAVOLA È UN GIOCO : Giuseppe Veneziano
curated by Ivan Quaroni

• PODCAST

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

The VERNISSAGE will take place on SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, from 11 AM to 1 PM at the main gallery venue in Viale Sant’Antonio 59/61, Varese. Both the artist and the curator, Ivan Quaroni, will be present.

Veneziano has long practiced a form of painting that absorbs and reinterprets pre-existing images, transforming them into new iconographic intersections and original narratives. His visual grammar blends Western artistic tradition with contemporary popular culture. In this new exhibition, the theme of fairy tales—often filtered through Disney’s cinematic reinterpretations—plays a central role, becoming a true visual theatre in which the apparent innocence of the characters meets the adult codes of religion, social customs, and current events.

The exhibition title, borrowed from a 1983 song by Edoardo Bennato, hints at the possibility of reading fairy tales as narrative systems capable of revealing the ambiguous and contradictory nature of society. In this sense, Veneziano reinterprets in painterly form a tradition that runs through music, literature, folklore, and the visual arts, turning the fairy tale into a parable of contemporary anxieties as well as of secret desires and impulses.

Among the key characters in his imagery, Snow White plays a recurring role. Veneziano transforms her into a fetish-like figure able to reflect the transformations of collective culture. In the works on display, the Disney princess appears in unexpected and unsettling versions: a vengeful heroine in The Massacre of the Innocents (2022), a lascivious and contemporary figure in Selfica (2021), and an ironic dominatrix in Fifty Shades of Goofy (2022). Pinocchio also returns multiple times, as in Madonna of Lies (2022) or Venus of Collodi (2023), where his image is interwoven with Renaissance tradition and classical iconography.

Little Red Riding Hood and Alice likewise become emblematic figures of a fairy-tale imaginary transported into the present. In In bocca al lupo (2023), the narrative recalls the symbolic and psychoanalytic roots of the tale, while Alice Wonder Social (2025) translates the wonder of Carroll’s story into the act of digital scrolling.

The paintings engage in dialogue with three-dimensional and installation works such as The Murder of Grumpy (2021) and Innocenti evasioni (2015), confirming the artist’s narrative and pop-oriented approach. Veneziano’s language remains immediate and unmistakable: flat colour fields, sharp outlines, and vivid chromatic choices create a clarity that—far from simplifying the content—becomes a tool for provocation, disorientation, and ironic revelation.

With Every Fairy Tale Is a Game, Veneziano presents fairy tales freed from their pedagogical function, transformed into allegories of contemporary life—exemplary figures of a modern human comedy.

A BILINGUAL CATALOGUE, produced by PUNTO SULL’ARTE and featuring reproductions of the exhibited works along with a critical essay by Ivan Quaroni, will accompany the exhibition. The artist will be present at the Vernissage.

Giuseppe Veneziano (Mazzarino, 1971) lives and works between Milan and Pietrasanta (LU). Trained as an architect, he chose to devote himself entirely to art, becoming one of the main exponents of the New Pop and Italian Newbrow movements. His painting merges pop culture, art history, and current events through provocative iconographic mash-ups. He has taken part in the 54th Venice Biennale (Italian Pavilion, 2011), the Italy-China Biennale (2012), the Prague Biennale (2009), the St. Petersburg Biennale (2008), and Artâthlos during the Beijing Olympics (2008). His works have been exhibited in public institutions such as the Triennale di Milano, Museo RISO in Palermo, MART in Rovereto, Museo Civico in Trento, Musei Capitolini in Rome, Museo Pecci in Prato, Palazzo Ducale in Massa, Palazzo Pallavicini in Bologna, and the Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai. He has exhibited in numerous Italian and international galleries, including London, Munich, and New York. Known for its visual impact and communicative strength, his work reflects with irony and sharp critical insight on the themes and myths of contemporary culture.