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L’isola del tesoro 2

2003

Year
2003
Dimensions
100 × 70 cm
Edition
Unique
Availability
Available
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Critical text

Drafted by the archive with the help of AI, not written by the artist.

The work strips treasure island of every possibility of adventure and converts it into a regime of waiting, in which identity is measured only through the codes of luck. In the «Scratch & Win» series, Zampogna treats the promise of a prize as a media mythology capable of organising ordinary life. Treasure no longer completes a journey or rewards discovery. It is anticipated by a surface offering figures, combinations and commands, while continually postponing their verification. The hope of economic change thus appears as a mediocre catharsis, prepared by a device addressed to everyone and guaranteed to no one.

The enlarged grammar of the ticket replaces narrative with an impersonal procedure: the title preserves the echo of adventure, while lucky numbers, amounts and instructions reduce that promise to a calculation. The seated figure interrupts the code without escaping its logic. The withdrawn profile and motionless wait do not create an autonomous episode, but give a body to the suspension produced by gambling. The vertical join between the two sheets also acts critically, crossing the field and making the unity between person and graphic apparatus precarious. Identity survives as a presence held within a surface that classifies it before recognising it.

Zampogna here carries the exchange between «real reality» and «media reality» to a further conclusion. Promotional graphics do not simply overlap the figure, but determine its time, posture and possible horizon. The title’s irony therefore coexists with a graver condition. The promised island is already available as an image, and for that very reason it cannot be reached. What remains is not the adventure of desire, but its serial administration, entrusted to signs that sustain expectation while neutralising its fulfilment.

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