20
07

Come Fosse
in Ascolto

The dialectic relationship between order-disorder, expansion-contraction, density-rarefaction, like the generative vitality of the form, are elements also found[read]in many sculptures in iron or terracotta made by the artist starting in 2006: Metameria (Metamerism), Come fosse in ascolto (As If Listening), Latte nero (Black Milk), Odradek, insiemi instabili (Unstable Sets), Fiori (Flowers), Vayu, Omphalos, La freccia the colpisce it bersaglio vola per sempre (The Arrow that Strikes the Target Flies Forever). But also in very recent works, like the installation created for the Museum of Modern Art of Ascona, entitled Memoriale volubile (Fluctuating Memorial). All of them are composed of a series of similar but not identical elements, in terms of form and size, whose number and arrangement varies, also in keeping with the place where they are positioned. In all these works, the unavoidable relationship with space makes them take on different aspects, demonstrating a flexibility, a capacity to adapt, that is part and parcel of the generative will that dwells inside them. Their components tend to multiply in a movement that without compromising individuality unites them in an ongoing metamorphosis.
Both Metameria, an iron sculpture composed of 23 parts, and Come fosse in ascolto, made of 21 parts in white terracotta, are organized on a plane, on a longitudinal axis, in order of decreasing size, symmetrical to a central element, or “in a rhythm of crescendo and diminuendo,” as the artist says, borrowing terms from the language of music. Both focus on the question of symmetry and its disruption, the dialectic between order as a principle of stability and disorder as a generative factor. Besides, both suggest similarities with imaginary organic structures, although there is no actual intention of mimicking reality: the point is not to represent – in the sense of re-producing – anything that exists, but to bring into being forms that reveal their shared belonging to an imaginary organic world. In Come fosse in ascolto there is a balance between the single parts that almost has a musical shape: from the low central note of the central element to the gradual ascent of pitch, in two opposite directions, towards the ends. The reference to sound in the title can also be connected with the form of the elements that make up the sculpture, which recall strange auricles and suggest the idea of a mysterious listening device.[/read]

Come Fosse in Ascolto. Terracotta, 21 elements 550x55x30 cm approx., 2007 [S0020]