Born in Captivity with Fugazzotto

Born in Captivity was a two-person exhibition of Federico Clapis and the painter Simone Fugazzotto at the Fondazione Maimeri in Milan, the foundation linked to the historic Milanese maker of artists' colours, which promotes contemporary art projects in the city. It belongs to the early phase of Clapis' path, when he began to present his sculptures and paintings in exhibition spaces after a period in which his audience knew him mainly from his videos online.

No published account of the show has been found, so its contents can only be read from the video recorded at the opening. The footage shows white rooms with vaulted ceilings and arched passages, filled with a large and mostly young crowd that moves between the works and gathers in conversation in the centre of the space. On the walls are large monochrome canvases, one in yellow and one in orange crossed by a rainbow-coloured arc, and a sculptural relief made of green, pointed elements running along a corner at the top of a wall. A camera operator can be seen filming among the visitors.

The title points to the theme of a life shaped from birth by conditions it did not choose, a question that would recur in Clapis' later work on technology and childhood. Seen today, the opening also documents the moment when the public he had built online began to follow him into physical art spaces in Milan.