CAI is pleased to announce The Command of Air, a solo exhibition by Tonino Mattu, featuring six oil paintings on linen and one work on paper. The exhibition marks the third show in the CAI Gallery program and is presented exclusively online, from October 19, 2025, until February 8, 2026. The exhibition and the artwork on paper take their title from Il dominio dell’aria (1921), a book by Italian air force strategist Giulio Douhet that argued for the transformative role of air power in modern warfare. Mattu revisits this historical reference in a time when drones and remote bombing are prevalent, reflecting on how technology and violence result in physical displacement. 

Il dominio dell’aria (The Command of Air) (2023) draws directly from the cover of Douhet’s 1921 publication. Rendered in oil on paper, the painting visualizes a terrain seen from above—both mappable and abstract—where the earth and the air merge into a sensorial, almost synesthetic space. Through a painterly distinction between topos (measurable place) and chora (cultural space), Mattu reflects on the destruction not only of land but also of memory, identity, and (home)land. The result is a meditation on the spatial and emotional consequences of military dominance. On the other hand, La barcata delle scimmie (The Monkey Boat) (2021) is based on a 1920s family photograph of a boat trip, though the painting quickly departs from any faithful representation. It is not a depiction of travel, but the sensation of internal movement—a composition that transforms a static image into a mental voyage through the painter’s visual language.

In Fake Sironi (2025), Mattu recreates L’allieva (1927) by Mario Sironi. This homage is not a copy but a reinterpretation in Mattu’s own painterly idiom. It offers a layered dialogue with the past, referencing a moment when art and politics were deeply entangled. The painting reflects on how forms endure even when their ideological surroundings shift, suggesting that artistic identity can emerge through tension with history rather than obedience to it. So let’s not obey. A message that is enforced, for instance, in Credimi (Believe Me) (2025), which is based on a frame from a postwar documentary set in southern Italy. A peasant woman—startled by the camera—momentarily assumes a pose evocative of Renaissance portraiture. In Mattu’s version, the woman’s face is overlaid with dark silhouettes of passing figures. The result is a layered image, combining multiple historical references that seem to float over and beneath one another. Her expression becomes a focal point—poised between awareness and distance—as the surrounding context dissolves into uncertainty.

In Crociere d’estate (Summer Cruises) (2025), the largest work of the show, Mattu borrows imagery from a vintage Mediterranean cruise advertisement. Stripped of its commercial polish, the image appears corroded and aged, like a long-forgotten photograph. The work no longer promotes a destination; instead, it interrogates the image itself—its role, its erosion, and its capacity to hold memory. One encounters a similar approach in Gita al lago (Trip to the Lake) (2021–2024), which draws from archival footage from the Istituto Luce, showing two women on a lakeside excursion. Their figures are preserved, but stripped of realistic context. Abstract vertical lines dominate the surface, while naturalistic traces linger like fragments of wallpaper or film. Its quiet atmosphere evokes a moment on the verge of historical rupture—perhaps just before the outbreak of the Second World War. In Buildings (2024), a painting inspired by archival film showing Ethiopian dignitaries swearing loyalty to Italy during the country’s colonial occupation. Rendered in a horizontal format typical of landscape painting, the piece combines architecture and human figures with earthy textures and scraped brushstrokes that evoke labor, violence, and erasure. Like Il dominio dell’aria, the work explores the contrast between material structures and intangible histories—between what can be claimed and what remains resistant to possession. As a result, the command from the air is not obeyed as easily as Guilio Douhet believed by the land. Credimi. 

Tonino Mattu (b. 1979, Nuoro, Sardinia) lives and works in Oristano, Italy. He first gained international recognition as part of the Italian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011. Since then, Mattu has been selected for numerous prestigious awards, including the Carlo Bonatto Minella Award (2013), the Pio Alferano Award (finalist, 2014), the Marchioni Award (first prize, 2015), and the Wells Art Contemporary (finalist, 2016). His work has been exhibited at the Italian Institute of Culture in Bucharest; Quartissimo Museum, Quartu Sant’Elena; Fondazione Sardegna, Cagliari; Pinacoteca Carlo Contini, Oristano; MAN Museum, Nuoro; and the Antonio Ortiz Echagüe Museum in Atzara, among others. Mattu’s work is held in several public and private collections, including Fondazione Sardegna (Cagliari), Banca di Sassari (Sassari), MAN Museum (Nuoro), the Vittorio Sgarbi Collection, and Fondazione Pio Alferano (Rome). He joined the CAI Gallery program in 2021.