Ein Radler

Amanita presents Ein Radler, Marco Scarpi’s first solo exhibition in New York and second with the gallery.

“E lui , con pazienza, si è chinato su di te per spiegarti che il Radler è una bevanda fatta birra e limonata mescolati insieme”
Dolce di per sé, Dacia Maraini

“Drei euro funf-und-funfzig”. “Danke”. “Tschuss”.
Al supermercato del mio paese tutti mi hanno sempre parlato in tedesco. Io rispondevo pure. Tanto un poco di tedesco lo sapevo. Forse era meglio così visto che sia io che le commesse sapevamo solamente formulare semplici frasi preimpostate e quindi non ne sarebbe scaturita alcuna conversazione. Quello che mi faceva strano era il fatto che ho sempre pensato di avere una faccia particolare, una di quelle facce che te le ricordi. Invece no. Mille persone uguali a me in quel piccolo supermercato, per giunta tedesche. Solamente la Marisa, regina del piccolo minimarket BROT UND MILK si ricordava di me. Da lei andavamo ogni pomeriggio a prendere le radler prima di andare in spiaggia. Lei non ci vedeva bene e quindi noi fingevamo fosse limonata. Forse è per quello che si ricordava di me, non mi ha mai visto ma solo sentito. Forse è la mia voce ad essere particolare o forse è perché ogni tanto balbettavo. Non ha poi tutta questa importanza. Fattostà che la Marisa a me piaceva. I miei amici ogni tanto le rubavano qualche merendina, ma io no. Ho sempre pagato le mie radler.

“And he patiently bent down to explain to you that Radler is a drink made of beer and lemonade mixed together.”
Dolce per sé, Dacia Maraini

“Drei euro funf-und-funfzig”. “Danke.” “Tschuss.” In my town’s market everyone always spoke to me in German. I managed to reply. After all, I understood a little German. Perhaps it was better that way since both myself and the shopkeepers could only formulate simple pre-set phrases, so no conversation would have arisen. What struck me as odd was the fact that I always thought I had a distinctive face, one of those faces that you remember. But no. A thousand people like me in that small market, and on top of that, they were German. Only Marisa, the queen of the small BROT UND MILK minimarket, remembered me. We would go to her shop every afternoon to get Radlers before going to the beach. She couldn’t see well, so we pretended we were buying lemonade. Maybe that’s why she recognized me; she never saw, but only heard me. Maybe it is my voice that is distinctive or maybe because I occasionally stuttered. It’s not that important. The fact is, I liked Marisa. My friends occasionally stole some snacks from her, but not me. I always paid for my Radlers.

Marco Scarpi (b.1998, San Donà di Piave) grew up in Cavallino-Treporti, a peninsular Venetian town. He completed a BA in illustration and Visual Media at UAL LLC, before moving back to Italy where he met Caio Twombly and started working with Amanita. In his art, he uses a visual pictorial language characterized by careful research and experimentation of textures and materials. He focuses on subjects belonging to the real world, distorted by their original context, and inserted in his personal artistic vision composed of memories and free association of ideas. In each work, his goal is to create a structure for thought and feeling that is both universal and specific.