Slasky - Il retro delle cose
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Selected by Anthony Chrisp
Over 10 years' experience in art trade and previously founded his own gallery.
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Artist Slasky presents Il retro delle cose, a 2026 work on cotton canvas with a 3D mosca model, magnet and a centesimo hidden on the back, non-stretched canvas in a gilded Baroque frame, signed and in excellent condition and Italian origin.
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Description from the seller
The Back of Things
Assembly: 3D model of a fly, a magnet, a penny, an un-stretched canvas, a gilded Baroque frame
2026
Curatorial Note
In 1917 Duchamp placed a urinal on a pedestal and called the resulting question art. A century later, the artist performs a mirrored and inverted gesture: not removing the object from its context to dignify it, but hiding the mechanism inside the most noble frame that exists—the Baroque one, the institutional one, the Museum—to see if it holds up.
It holds up.
The fly is neither painted nor alive, nor did it land there by chance. It is a three-dimensional model of millimeter precision, anchored to the canvas by a magnet and by a penny tucked on the back. The canvas is not taut: it yields slightly, breathes, consciously participates in the deception. The work is a machine of lying built with meticulous artisanal craftsmanship.
Here you hear Cattelan: that quintessentially Italian ability to use irony as a serious instrument, to make you laugh and then leave the viewer alone with an uncomfortable question. Like Cattelan, the artist works on credulity as sculptural material. The public who approaches to shoo away the fly is not wrong—it is simply completing the work.
But there is also Hirst, and his fly is not innocent. In the Hirstian tradition the insect is a perturbing presence, a memento mori in a minimal format. Here, however, death is double: the fly was never alive, yet it seems more alive than any painted fly. The simulacrum outdoes the original—and that is the true subject of the work.
The penny hidden behind the canvas—invisible, vulgar, indispensable—is the confession that the work will never make to the public. It is the back of things: that banal, necessary mechanism that sustains every illusion, every institution, every masterpiece.
The Baroque frame is not ironic in contrast with emptiness: it is complicit. It tells the observer that there is something important here even before the eye comes into focus. It is Duchamp’s pedestal, only more decorated.
“The truth of the work lies where no one looks. On the back.”
Assemble on cotton canvas Museum 350g + certificate of authenticity
« Art does not represent new things, but represents them with novelty »
Slasky is a renowned Italian artist whose works have been exhibited in solo and group shows internationally.
The artist has the ability to fuse classical artworks with techniques of contemporary digital art. With his neo-urban classical style, he combines tradition and modernity, bringing the protagonists of original artworks into contemporary social and artistic environments.
Recent Exhibitions
FACE 2 FACE
March 5th
Laundry Studios
2 Warburton Rd, London E8 3RT
UK
Recent Exhibitions
Tokyo Open Art | Art on Loop Exhibition
Venue Address
3 Chome-20-18 Jingumae, Shibuya,
Tokyo 150-0001,
Japan
Parallax Art Fair
Kensington Town Hall
Hornton Street
London
W8 7NX
2024
Solo Exhibition
CONTEMPORARY VENICE
Palazzo Pisani-Revedin
S. Marco, 4013A, 30124 Venezia, Italia
ARTLAB
Benjamin Eck Gallery
Munich, Germany
2021
Mia Fair
The Information Photography Art Fair Italy
Milan, Italy
Lausanne Art Fair
Beaulieu Lausanne
Booth 59
Swiss
Lille ArtUp 2021
Lille, France
StreetArt//UrbanArt
Legnano, Italy
2020
Woodward Gallery
WashYourHands Exhibition
New York City, NY
RedSheep Gallery
Work in Paper
Stockholm, Sweden
2019
Wopart Art Fair 2019 / Centro Esposizioni - Lugano, Swiss
Lang Leve Rembrandt
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
The Back of Things
Assembly: 3D model of a fly, a magnet, a penny, an un-stretched canvas, a gilded Baroque frame
2026
Curatorial Note
In 1917 Duchamp placed a urinal on a pedestal and called the resulting question art. A century later, the artist performs a mirrored and inverted gesture: not removing the object from its context to dignify it, but hiding the mechanism inside the most noble frame that exists—the Baroque one, the institutional one, the Museum—to see if it holds up.
It holds up.
The fly is neither painted nor alive, nor did it land there by chance. It is a three-dimensional model of millimeter precision, anchored to the canvas by a magnet and by a penny tucked on the back. The canvas is not taut: it yields slightly, breathes, consciously participates in the deception. The work is a machine of lying built with meticulous artisanal craftsmanship.
Here you hear Cattelan: that quintessentially Italian ability to use irony as a serious instrument, to make you laugh and then leave the viewer alone with an uncomfortable question. Like Cattelan, the artist works on credulity as sculptural material. The public who approaches to shoo away the fly is not wrong—it is simply completing the work.
But there is also Hirst, and his fly is not innocent. In the Hirstian tradition the insect is a perturbing presence, a memento mori in a minimal format. Here, however, death is double: the fly was never alive, yet it seems more alive than any painted fly. The simulacrum outdoes the original—and that is the true subject of the work.
The penny hidden behind the canvas—invisible, vulgar, indispensable—is the confession that the work will never make to the public. It is the back of things: that banal, necessary mechanism that sustains every illusion, every institution, every masterpiece.
The Baroque frame is not ironic in contrast with emptiness: it is complicit. It tells the observer that there is something important here even before the eye comes into focus. It is Duchamp’s pedestal, only more decorated.
“The truth of the work lies where no one looks. On the back.”
Assemble on cotton canvas Museum 350g + certificate of authenticity
« Art does not represent new things, but represents them with novelty »
Slasky is a renowned Italian artist whose works have been exhibited in solo and group shows internationally.
The artist has the ability to fuse classical artworks with techniques of contemporary digital art. With his neo-urban classical style, he combines tradition and modernity, bringing the protagonists of original artworks into contemporary social and artistic environments.
Recent Exhibitions
FACE 2 FACE
March 5th
Laundry Studios
2 Warburton Rd, London E8 3RT
UK
Recent Exhibitions
Tokyo Open Art | Art on Loop Exhibition
Venue Address
3 Chome-20-18 Jingumae, Shibuya,
Tokyo 150-0001,
Japan
Parallax Art Fair
Kensington Town Hall
Hornton Street
London
W8 7NX
2024
Solo Exhibition
CONTEMPORARY VENICE
Palazzo Pisani-Revedin
S. Marco, 4013A, 30124 Venezia, Italia
ARTLAB
Benjamin Eck Gallery
Munich, Germany
2021
Mia Fair
The Information Photography Art Fair Italy
Milan, Italy
Lausanne Art Fair
Beaulieu Lausanne
Booth 59
Swiss
Lille ArtUp 2021
Lille, France
StreetArt//UrbanArt
Legnano, Italy
2020
Woodward Gallery
WashYourHands Exhibition
New York City, NY
RedSheep Gallery
Work in Paper
Stockholm, Sweden
2019
Wopart Art Fair 2019 / Centro Esposizioni - Lugano, Swiss
Lang Leve Rembrandt
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Details
Era
After 2000
Sold by
Agent
Country of origin
Italy
Style
Folk Art
Material
Cotton
Artist
Slasky
Title of artwork
Il retro delle cose
Signature
Signed
Year
2026
Condition
Excellent condition
Height
40 cm
Width
34 cm
Depth
3 cm
