At Clima, Kenji Ide and Nicola Martini transform the gallery into a landscape of traces, memory, and suspended presences.

oraclecreativestudio
May 1
3 min read

With an immersive intervention that completely reconfigures the gallery spaces, Nicola Martini and Kenji Ide create at Clima an exhibition composed of stratifications, encounters, absences, and urban narratives suspended in time.

Kenji Ide / Nicola Martini, Exhibition view at Clima, Milan. Ph Flavio Pescatori, courtesy the Artists and Clima, Milan.

Within the spaces of Clima, the exhibition by Nicola Martini and Kenji Ide does not simply place two different artistic practices in dialogue; it completely transforms the very perception of the gallery itself.

Upon entering the space, the sensation is that of stepping into an environment that preserves memory. The walls seem to breathe, to retain traces, slowly resurfacing beneath the surface. Martini’s intervention acts directly upon the architecture through Sippe, a project the artist has pursued since 2013 and which here takes on a new immersive and almost organic configuration.

By applying a photosensitive tar to the walls, Martini transforms the gallery into a sort of enormous photographic negative. What normally remains hidden, old installation marks, layers of plaster, scars left by previous exhibitions, suddenly becomes visible again.

The black, living surface of the walls does not function merely as an exhibition backdrop, but as an active body of the show. The space loses its neutrality and becomes narrative matter, an emotional archive, an accumulation of time.

Sippe and memory as a collective experience

In Martini’s practice, Sippe is not only an installation but an ongoing process in constant evolution. Over the years, the project has also developed through a series of private gatherings organized by the artist: silent, undocumented assemblies built around a monolith composed of plaster, wax, and photosensitive tar.

Nicola Martini, Sippe (Alessandro, Jacopo), 2026 Microcrystalline wax, bitumen, plaster, 35 x 106 x 106 cm. Ph Flavio Pescatori, courtesy the Artists and Clima, Milan. — Nicola Martini, *Sippe (Alessandro, Jacopo)*, 2026 Microcrystalline wax, bitumen, plaster, 35 x 106 x 106 cm. Ph Flavio Pescatori, courtesy the Artists and Clima, Milan.

People from different disciplines and backgrounds gather in a circle around this sculptural presence, leaving as their only trace incisions, words, and marks directly on the material. No photographs, no digital archive, no recordings.

This ritual and relational dimension is also reflected in the exhibition at Clima, where the monolith appears as an enigmatic, almost archaeological object, capable of absorbing thoughts, presences, and invisible layers.

Martini’s intervention thus engages with the concepts of permanence and disappearance, and with the possibility that a space may retain traces of human passage even when bodies are no longer present.

Kenji Ide’s sculptures as fragments of an invisible city

Within this dark and sensitive architecture, the works of Kenji Ide are inserted.

His small painted wooden sculptures, often incorporating materials collected during his walks, appear as apparitions scattered throughout the space. They do not occupy the gallery in a monumental way, but instead emerge almost accidentally: minimal objects, suspended figures, details that seem to belong to stories already happened or still waiting to unfold.

Left: Kenji Ide, Leaning into a dream, 2026 Wood, water color, acrylic varnish, sand stone, 33 x 15 x 14 cm | Right: Kenji Ide, Out to find a distant promise, 2026 Wood, water color, acrylic varnish, acrylic spray, 25 x 10 x 13 cm. Ph Flavio Pescatori, courtesy the Artists and Clima, Milan. — Left: Kenji Ide, *Leaning into a dream*, 2026 Wood, water color, acrylic varnish, sand stone, 33 x 15 x 14 cm | Right: Kenji Ide, *Out to find a distant promise*, 2026 Wood, water color, acrylic varnish, acrylic spray, 25 x 10 x 13 cm. Ph Flavio Pescatori, courtesy the Artists and Clima, Milan.

For Ide, walking is an integral part of the creative process. The works are born during movement, in the slow time of observation and urban traversal. This is why his sculptures always retain an open narrative dimension: they seem like poetic relics gathered along a road, elements of a scene of which the viewer perceives only a fragment.

Placed within the space transformed by Martini, Ide’s works acquire a new intensity. The gallery’s blackened walls evoke alleyways, worn surfaces, and urban backstreets; the sculptures, in turn, appear as presences left on the margins of an invisible city, silent traces of human passage.

An exhibition that works with absence

The strength of the project lies precisely in this constant tension between presence and absence.

On one hand, there are Martini’s walls, which bring to light what is normally covered and erased; on the other, Ide’s sculptures, which suggest actions, movements, and encounters without ever explicitly revealing them. Everything in the exhibition seems to speak of what remains: imprints, residues, memories, minimal traces.

At a time when exhibition spaces often tend to favor immediate imagery and spectacular installations, the show at Clima instead opts for a more silent and layered language. It is an experience that requires time, attention, and traversal, where space is not simply the place that hosts the works but becomes a living, vulnerable entity in constant transformation.