Still Under Construction

For Brodsky, every building begins with a simple gesture: a sketch, a note, a fleeting figure. Yet the drawing is never the final design, but an open space that evolves. About For Alexander Brodsky, every structure originates from a simple gesture: a drawing, a note, a barely sketched figure. But the drawing never corresponds to the final product. Instead, it is an open space, meant to be transformed as it is realized in different materials, scales and forms. The works in this exhibition illustrate this ongoing dialogue between the idea and the materials, like an open-ended process in which nothing ever seems truly finished. Gingik (Little White Dog) originated with a small, postcard-sized engraving created in New York in the 1980s. Decades later, that figure reappeared as a life-size bronze sculpture. This work is at once ironic and personal, and unprecedented in Brodsky’s artistic output. The transition from a two-dimensional print to a three-dimensional sculpture brought to life a figure that had been lingering in the artist’s imagination for a long time. It resurfaced in a different expressive language, and was transformed without losing its essence and the immediacy of the gesture with which it originated. The same principle applies to the architectural models made in unfired clay. Rather than representing buildings, these works seem to emerge slowly from the material itself. The clay is not fixed in a definitive form. It is left unfired and unglazed, free to go on reacting to the air, humidity and light, recording the passage of time through subtle variations in surfaces, curves and light and shade. Every shift and settling is as much a part of the work as the artist’s original gesture, and the material is an active presence, with its own transformation process remaining visible. These works are where Brodsky the architect and Brodsky the artist meet. They retain the precision of the design concept, yet entrust the task of completing it to the material and the imagination . This idea is explored further in Archipelagus Aequitatis Universalis, an installation conceived in 2026 for the Cascais Water Biennial, curated by Demetrio Paparoni, and now being presented for the first time in Milan. The planet imagined by Brodsky is entirely submerged. What remains is a constellation of identical islands, arranged in a strict order, each conceived as an autonomous unit capable of sustaining the life of its own community. A globe covered with dots, an island reflected ad infinitum in an optical device, and a series of drawings depicting its structure and functioning make up a system that is as precise as it is enigmatic. Rather than imagining a future, Brodsky has constructed a possible geography of equilibrium, leaving the viewer free to decide whether that world represents a form of harmony or control, and questioning the delicate relationship between autonomy and belonging. In Brodsky’s work, architecture transcends the realm of design and becomes a language with which to observe the world, question it and imagine it differently. Whether it is a dog, a house or an entire archipelago, his works convey the idea that every construction is, first and foremost, a way of looking at the world. Read more Toggle Installation Sculpture