20
12

Corpi
Celesti III

It is interesting to observe how certain questions addressed by Ascari’s work resurface, perhaps after many years, almost to resume a discussion that has not been interrupted[read]but has simply flowed underground, then returning and taking on new forms. This is what happens, for example, in the cycle of works under the title Corpi celesti (Heavenly Bodies), including a series of works on paper from 2006 and an installation in 2012. The same can be said for the reprise of a sound installation from 1978, Vibractions, now shown in a new version that maintains the conceptual approach of the original. The cycle Corpi celesti arises from a question – regarding the force that holds things together or repels them – that is the conceptual nucleus of many other works by the artist. A question that stays open, taking on different configurations each time, reinterpreted through different languages and different materials.
In the 2012 installation, the material is the plumb line used by masons to make a wall that is perfectly perpendicular to the floor: the point of the weights indicates the center of the Earth and the line from which they are hung is the reflection of the Axis Mundi. On the ground, there are some in an overturned position, point up, in a direction diametrically opposite from that of the center of the Earth. The work wants to make visible the energy, the gravitational forces of attraction-repulsion that hold the world together, that make the planets, the heavenly bodies, not collide.[/read]

Corpi Celesti. Brass, plumb line, 35 elements, variable dimensions, 2012 [S0030]