SALVATORE GARZILLO
Cartografie Umane - appunti di un cronista

Galleria Patricia Armocida is happy to announce a new solo exhibition by Salvatore Garzillo, titled “Human cartographies - notes of a chronicler”, opening on January 27th at 6:30 p.m.

 

The exhibition will feature circa fifty small and medium-sized ink and mixed-media drawings on paper.

 

“If every person is a planet, they must be explored to be understood. Anyone who returns from a journey, be it short or long, carries a map. A map with uninhabitable mountains, serene lakes, lush valleys, hostile deserts, stormy hearts, emotional cliffs. They are not photographs or X-rays. They are human cartographies.”

 

Salvatore Garzillo, who goes by the pseudonym Salgar, was born and raised in Naples, where his artistic gaze and sensibility were formed. For over 15 years he has lived and worked in Milan, the daily setting for an attentive, engaged, never distracted observation. As a crime reporter for ANSA, he fills his waiting time by drawing on pages packed with notes from the cases he follows at crime scenes.

 

The notebooks that accompany him to police stations, barracks, and crime sites thus become hybrid spaces, where journalistic annotations coexist with images.

 

From this intimate archive “Human cartographies - notes of a chronicler” is born, in which the artist presents a selection of works created in recent years in his notebooks, which are not mere surfaces, but witnesses to a time (sometimes brief and dust-like), a passage, a lived experience.

 

Salgar’s drawings are windows onto contemporary humanity. At times they are quick, straight-forward strokes, capable of capturing a gesture or an expression; at times they are more elaborated, allowing space for a more meditative gaze on the oddities and fragilities of human beings. Irony is a tool of closeness, oscillating between indulgent sarcasm and empathetic affection. Salgar does not explain, he does not judge: he accompanies. The depicted scenes arrive at a threshold of truth, not a declared truth, but a suggested one, capable of touching deep chords of consciousness.

 

Natural elements, human presences, and seemingly marginal details all contribute to fueling his watchful curiosity, an essential condition for affirming truth as the artist conceives it: not an objective, stable fact, but a mutable terrain, shaped by emotions and perceptions.

 

In this tension between reality and imagination Salgar’s work finds its strength, inviting viewers to identify not so much with what they see, but with the very process of seeing.

 

These intimate portraits possess a universal resonance, drawing the viewer into an active role and making them a complicit witness to the stories they tell.

 

 

Biography:

 

Salvatore Garzillo (Naples, 1987) is a freelance journalist. He began working as a reporter in Naples and since 2011, has been covering crime news for ANSA in Milan.

 

He has followed the main criminal cases of the last 15 years and has produced reportages (illustrated by himself) from Afghanistan, Kosovo, Greece, Iraq, India, Brazil, and Ukraine (from 2014 onwards), published by both Italian and international media.

 

Specializing in undercover investigations, in 2019 he spent nearly 3 years infiltrating the far right to investigate connections between Freemasonry, neo-fascists, and Lega and Fratelli d’Italia political parties. His video investigation “Lobby Nera”, broadcast by La7 and Fanpage, received the “European Award for Investigative and Judicial Journalism Evolution 2021” and the “Premio Vergani – Cronista dell’Anno.” He is currently a correspondent for Mediaset.

 

He is the author of the Sky docuseries “La Mala - Banditi a Milano”, which, through interviews with key figures (including Renato Vallanzasca), chronicles the world of Milanese gangs. He is also the author of the book “Ultima Edizione - Storie nere dagli archivi de La Notte” and of “Milano: cronache di criminalità organizzata”, which is part of Il Corriere della Sera’s “Mafie” series.

 

In 2025, he conceived the exhibition “De bello - Notes on War and Peace” at Gres Art 671 in Bergamo, a collective featuring 37 international artists (including Marina Abramovic, Alberto Burri, Anselm Kiefer, Joseph Beuys, and Monira Al Qadiri). The exhibition also featured drawings he created during his months as a correspondent in Ukraine in 2022, some colored with local soil.

 

He always carries two pens and draws on anything, even receipts. His best sketches are in the notebook he takes to police stations, crime scenes, and courtrooms, on top of dense pages of notes about the cases he follows daily. The essence of his graphic journalism work is captured in “Il giro di nera”, a column in which he documents and illustrates firsthand crime stories, later adapted into a live performance in the innovative format of “stand-up tragedy.”

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