NEW YORK, NY.- kaufmann repetto is presenting FREAK YOU! the first solo exhibition in the United States by AdE (Atelier dell’Errore/Atelier of Mistakes), a collective of neurodivergent artists based in Reggio Emilia, Italy. In a literal occupation of the first and second floors of the gallery, FREAK YOU! brings together over 20 of the collective’s most recent works, including drawings, sculptures, video, and a series of paintings created expressly for the exhibition.

In a practice spanning more than two decades AdE’s sole subject matter has always been imaginative animals protagonists of a visionary zoology of the future. Their approach places value on mistakes, forming the foundation of a creative process that is profoundly and rigorously collective.

Informed by the tensions and fragilities of the young artists in AdE’s earlier years, these animals once served as salvation figures, guardians, and caretakers. Today, the works in this exhibition bear witness to their evolution into organisms of utopian pleasure, projections of unfulfilled, repressed, or denied desire, released into the exhibition space with a primal, explosive urgency.

At the entrance, AdE_Vela_Alpina [AdE_Alpine Sail] (2024), a large-scale, double-sided “sail” suspended from the ceiling and visible through the gallery’s windows, marks the start of the exhibition. The sail’s reflective surface is constructed from a patchwork of isothermal rescue blankets—a symbolic medium chosen for all the works on the exhibition’s first floor. Jesus’ blood never failed me yet (2024), a swollen, hypertrophic drop of blood signals and comforts the passage beyond the threshold of AdE's own body, into its “Unknown Pleasures” (2025), presented in the gallery’s main space.

Here, an ecstatic proliferation of colorful, complex, and erotic entities collides with classicism and sexuality, where tradition and rupture burst into a charged reinterpretation of Greek mythology. Unconscious objects of desire manifest as a sensual Aphrodite, an X-rated Ares, or an out-of-control Hephaestus. On the central wall, Intersexual Shamanessan (2025) a hermaphrodite-shaman suspended between heaven and earth presides over the space, a master of ceremonies in a mythological bacchanal.

In the gallery’s basement, the “Hades ” of AdE reveals an oracular image of the terrestrial world unfolding on the walls. Ghost Parade (2023)—an immense 26-foot-long pencil drawing accented with precious gold leaf—portrays an unearthly, monumental cortège of four insect-like creatures. These figures, envisioned as future rulers of the world after humanity’s definitive expulsion, lead a divine and hermaphroditic parade, carrying new offspring generated by parthenogenesis in their wombs.

These beyond-zoological specters are echoed in smaller drawings along the opposite wall. Rendered in colored pencil, marker, and gold leaf, these kaleidoscopic “Variations” (2024) mirror and distort their larger counterparts.

Where do these creatures come from? Who has created them? Who is an artist? What is art? AdE’s liberating and caustic reply is preserved in their chosen title for their exhibition: Freak You!, a celebration of the anomaly, of mistakes and the sacred dimension of the monster and its prodigy.

Atelier dell’Errore (AdE)

Atelier dell'Errore (AdE) [Atelier of Mistakes] is an artist collective dedicated to visual arts and performance, based in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Founded in 2002 by the artist Luca Santiago Mora, who today leads the group as its artistic director. AdE began as a visual arts workshop for neurodivergent children within the pediatric healthcare system in Reggio Emilia and Bergamo.

In 2018, after more than a generation of working together, numerous exhibitions, and performances in art institutions and theaters, the close-knit group entered adulthood. No longer eligible for the workshop, the artists developed a pressing necessity to continue their work together professionally. In close collaboration with their families, AdE transformed into a non-profit cooperative art studio, where each artist is an equal partner. AdE finances itself through the sale of its works and professional collaborations.

In an artistic practice spanning drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, and performance, AdE is guided by two core rules: animals are the only subject matter, and during the creative phase, nothing is ever erased—preserving the transformative potential of every so-called mistake.

Today, AdE is composed of 12 neurodivergent artists. They approach their most ambitious projects much like a Renaissance workshop, with each artist specializing in a specific aspect of the work’s execution. Luca Santiago Mora often compares AdE’s creative process to the functioning of an “organism,” where each part plays a vital, essential role. Here, works are not only collective creative endeavors but also part of a larger relational process.

Since the collective’s establishment in 2015, the Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy, has hosted AdE as an ongoing project.