Wonderland features works by 14 young London based artists at Milan’s innovative Assab One project space:

Alice Anderson, Sam Buxton, Oliver Clegg, Shezad Dawood, Tom Gallant, Stephane Graff, Henry Hudson, Bridget Hugo, Alastair Mackie, Polly Morgan, Boo Saville, Martin Sexton, Jamie Shovlin, Hugo Wilson.

As the title suggests this show is intended to evoke a magical realm that proclaims a universe of fertile imaginative possibilities. Nowadays wonderment tends to be more narrowly associated with childhood and it has become an increasingly remote experience in our era of relentless advancements in science and technology. Yet in the field of visual art there is still a great capacity for wonder, which is one of the most fundamental aspects of aesthetic experience. It relates to the powers of thought, feeling, imagination and creativity. But perhaps most significantly wonderment generates an enlarged perception, a freshness of feeling and a general aura of optimism.

This diverse selection of new art from London includes painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, collage, sculpture, installation, photography and video. Much of this displays an emerging new tendency in artistic practice with a return to more traditional artistic virtuosity, and attention to detail matched by an emphasis on process with a strong conceptual edge. 

While artists of the previous generation were frequently preoccupied with their own existence these artists tend to produce work rooted in more universal subject matter. Their practice frequently involves in depth research into history, science, natural history and futurology. Also, instead of their input being just conceptual with the work fabricated by someone else, many of them show practical skills and are directly involved in the actual production. Wonderland is characterized by an overall sense of hybridity, where notions of miraculous scale incorporate elements of nature and technology and intriguing scientific principles.

Assab One is a cultural association, active since 2002, whose exhibition space is a vast 2500 square metre former printing factory. Its name comes from the building’s address, which is easily accessible by public transport, just a short walk from the Cimiano stop on the Milan subway system. Wonderland will open on March 26th to coincide with the opening of MiArt, one of the major Italian international contemporary art fairs. The exhibition will also run concurrently with Milan’s world famous design fair (Salone del Mobile) which opens two weeks later.