Davide Allieri

47°24’35’’ N / 9°44’20’’ E

Press Preview                         
Wednesday, 11 March 2026, 10:30 a.m.

Opening
Thursday, 12 March 2026, 7 p.m.

Artist Talk
Friday, 13 March 2026, 2 p.m.

Exhibition Duration        
13 March – 21 June 2026
Tue – Sun, 10-18 Uhr

Davide Allieri’s environments and large-scale installations exude the atmospheric end-of-the-world mood of an apocalyptic science fiction narrative. Reality and fiction, past and future, doom and dawn – everything moves between extremes. The Italian artist explores the points of rupture and moments of transformation between humans and technology. Through his artistic appropriation of sci-fi’s narrative strategies, he conveys the genre’s typical existential anxiety, which becomes unbearable without hope. Hope lies in finding an answer to the eternal question of the visionary “afterwards”. How and where will we find ourselves when the end of the world looms large? Where lies salvation? How do we reach a safe place – and at what price?

The artist shows us an intermediate state: a future that seems to have already happened. In an inhospitable landscape shrouded in a pallid haze, futuristic-looking, robot-like machines and parts with loose cable ends – some on a gigantic scale – have come to a standstill. We become visitors to this era, entering the scene as outsiders in a museum, fascinated by this artificial environment that seems to have long ago rejected human presence. Are we witnesses to a vision of the distant future, or are we standing before the relics of a lost civilisation?

Allieri’s extraordinary sculptures embody this atmospheric tension through their aesthetics and design. They are appealing, yet uncanny; beautiful, yet repulsive; dead, gutted, disconnected from the grid, yet carry within them the potential for life. Assuming a presence somewhere between a rigid object, a highly complex machine and a natural organism, they allude to an invisible human existence of which we become eerily aware through our own observation. Allieri finds inspiration in animated, human-controlled robots. His sometimes monumental figures draw on science fiction inventions and on a collection of contemporary motorcycle and car parts. The elements are spatially collaged to create dysfunctional structures that seem like autonomous creatures. The choice of materials is particularly noteworthy: since 2022, Allieri has primarily worked with fibreglass. This glass fibre-reinforced plastic is especially conducive to shaping and evokes a technological, futuristic aura. His complex and intensive work process results in a material that is at once durable, rigid and flexible – and has a fascinating feel. With its unusual appearance and the experimental use of it, fibreglass has become his trademark, significantly contributing to the creation of his alternative world.

In Dornbirn, the former industrial site provides an ideal starting point for Allieri’s artistic universe. Here he has created his largest environment to date, completely transforming the space and giving his newly created sculptures a site-specific context that allows the narrative to be experienced with all the senses. The architecture evokes bygone eras, the successes and catastrophes of the Vorarlberg metal industry. The artist has shielded this vast space from daylight by installing diffuse lighting, so that we actually step from the verdant City Garden into another sphere, another time. Does this world hopefully open the door to a new beginning, or does it mark the dystopian end of a defunct civilisation? The question remains undecided – or perhaps the answer is left up to us.

Davide Allieri (born in Bergamo, Italy, in 1982) graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, where he now lives and works. His works have been shown at numerous institutions and exhibition spaces, including the Kunstmuseum, Den Haag (“New New Babylon – Visions for Another Tomorrow”, 2025), Triennale Milano (“After All”, solo, 2024), the Galerie Hubert Winter in Vienna (“CELLS”, solo, 2023), the Palazzo Monti in Brescia (“HOLDER”, solo, 2023), the House, Berlin (“Very friendly”, 2023), the DAS exhibition space in Milan (“BUIA 1:31”, 2019) and in projects at the Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler Gallery in Berlin (“NEXUS”, 2024). In 2024, he received the viennacontemporary | Bildrecht SOLO Award together with the Galerie Hubert Winter.