Contributed by Alessandrio Teoldi / Angelo Vasta’s exhibition “Luci Spente” (Lights Off) at Tappeto Volante in Tribeca centers on a simple gesture: turning down the light. Not removing it, not rejecting color, but softening its intensity. For an artist whose visual language has often featured bright, vibrant palettes, this is a bold shift of deliberate subtraction.
In the more intimate works, such as Ragazzo con Giglio, Di Notte, Deserto Rosso, and Before the Show, light seems to have withdrawn, making room for a suspended, contemplative space. The dark background – closer to burnt umber than absolute black – does not swallow the images but shelters them. The color expanses – a purple curtain, a pale blue dress, a floral detail – seem more vivid and more fragile. It is as if the paintings are asking us to slow down and let our eyes gradually adjust to the darkness in order to discover what continues to glow.
There is nothing threatening about the darkness; it feels like a place of refuge. The artist has translated his sense of loss, his introspection, and his withdrawal into images that evoke retreat from the noise of the world to return into something more intimate. Even in the landscapes, such as the view beyond the doorway in Di Notte, the prevailing feeling is deep calm.
Before the Show was inspired by the artist’s experience as a theater videographer. This pastel on paper captures the suspended moment before a performance begins, when dancers prepare backstage and the stage itself remains in shadow. Here, the theater becomes a metaphor for the exhibition itself: a space where darkness does not intimidate but welcomes and where the lights go out so that something else may appear more intensely.
In the smaller paintings, surfaces vibrate and colors brighten again. If the larger works belong to an inward season of reflection, the smaller ones evoke the subsequent awakening. The latter also explicitly reference places in and cultural memories of Europe – particularly Italy, where Vasta comes from. Subtly tinged by nostalgia, they ask what it means to feel at home.
Looking at these paintings made me feel that the thread that truly runs through the entire exhibition is the search for human connection. In many of the works, bodies draw close, support one another, embrace, or simply share a quiet space. From Holding Each Other to Dancers on Dunes, from Red Desert to Tuscany, there is a longing for closeness that feels both natural and necessary. The reference to Antonioni’s film, from which Red Desert takes its title, is not accidental. The theme of contemporary alienation runs quietly beneath many of the works on view. The tension between isolation and the desire for connection reflects a condition that feels deeply contemporary, intensified by the experience of urban life.
Taken as a whole, this body of work offers a thoughtful reflection on vulnerability, the need for shelter, and the desire for closeness. Through a painting practice that moves between darkness and color, introspection and openness, Vasta transforms deeply personal experiences into images that speak to something universal. What emerges is not a celebration of solitude, but a search for comfort: a gentle darkness from which one slowly returns to the light.
“Angelo Vasta: Luci Spente,” Tappeto Volante Gallery, 4 Cortlandt Alley, New York, NY. Through June 27, 2026.
About the author: Alessandrio Teoldi is an italian artist and writer based in New York.
