ESH Gallery
Japan on my mind. Works by Claudio Destito and Alice Zanin
12 – 20 December 2025
Opening: Thursday 12 December, 6.30pm
12 – 20 December 2025, h 11am-7pm

ESH Gallery unveils its new Milan space with the exhibition Japan on my mind. The show explores connections between Italy and Japan, offering a meeting point between Claudio Destito’s conceptual irony and Alice Zanin’s papier-collé.

Claudio Destito materialises common and popular expressions, transforming them into works such as “War and Peace” and “Renaissance”. His ironic and engaging approach creates a direct dialogue with the viewer, using irony as a tool for reflection to show us reality from fresh perspectives. Like a Flemish master, Destito composes visual enigmas by concealing meanings in the details, almost challenging the public to discover them. Several works in the exhibition have been created specifically for an audience sensitive to the Japanese world, building bridges between different cultures.

Alice Zanin is a refined animalier littéraire, capable of bringing to life a mystical bestiary through papier-collé. Her work balances aesthetic exploration and scholarly citation, evoking the animal world with literary references and memories sedimented over time.
Besides choosing a comic-inspired imagery for this exhibition, it is in the very DNA of the technique employed that we find traces of Japanese origin: during the golden centuries of the Venetian Republic, “lacca povera” – decoration with paper cut-outs – was born as an economical alternative to precious Japanese lacquer, so sought after in European courts.

The exhibition is completed by several contemporary ukiyo-e prints from the iconography of pop and rock music: from David Bowie to Kiss, through to Iron Maiden. Produced in limited series using the original technique of Japanese masters, these prints bring ancient art closer to contemporary taste.
The project was born in collaboration with Ukiyo-e Project to pass on Japanese art and support artists and craftspeople. The prints reinterpret pop and rock icons in an Japanese way: Bowie as a mystical illusionist, Kiss as kabuki actors and samurai, Iron Maiden with references to the Edo tradition between geishas and the band’s iconic symbols. Each work is the result of collaboration between illustrator, engraver and printer, preserving artisanal memory.