Capitoli di un monumento (I-XV), 2019
Pigments, nails, and pure gold leaf incorporated in methacrylate cylinders, 15 iron structures 70 X 70 X 200 cm (variable) each, of 3 different diameters, adjustable height.
Courtesy of the artist and Montrasio Arte Monza e Milano
Work produced by the Giovanardi Corporation.
Photographic credits: Andrea Rossetti, Fosca Piccinelli
Gianni Moretti
Pigments, nails, pure gold, methacrylate, iron
70 x 70 x 200 cm
Monumento all’Attenzione project. On this occasion, the artist advances his artistic inquiry, broadening his investigation with the use of new materials and techniques to construct a series of ‘chapters’ that summarise all of history. These sculptures, focussing our attention by means of the autonomy of each chapter, move the central concept of the story ahead, implementing it.
Fifteen telescopic tripods, oriented in various directions, of variable height and of three different diameters, are semi-transparent and semi-mirrored lenses, a Wunderkammer containing black-and-white images set into plexiglass together with nails covered in gold leaf or a layer of gold pigment. What interests Moretti is experimenting with new forms in which he can integrate the delicate materials and techniques that are dear to him (tissue paper, gold leaf, monotype prints) with the sturdy elements and methods proposed to him by the company (melting, aluminium frameworks, methacrylate cyclinders). The idea is to describe a condition, ordinarily in delicate balance, through images of the map of a territory, photographs of the landscape, of the mule track, illustrations of cardoons and a single tripod (that ends the trail) containing human presences: the ephemeral vs. the enduring, a body that breathes, stable and vital. For all these reasons, this new dialogue between the artist and Giovanardi constitutes a detailed study of the story of the Monument translated by sculptural components that reveal its outcomes through increasingly independent solutions.
Technical specifications:
Methacrylate blocks obtained by the inclusion of sheets of methacrylate printed with a silk-screen technique and shaped by hot forming. Gold leaf with black pigments and gold dust applied by hand by the artist using the 16th-century technique of dusting. Milling of the edges and polishing. Incorporation of the work through the process of solidification of the polymer in an autoclave. Structure for exhibiting the work in unpolished iron protected by natural wax. The incorporation of the solidified polymer, because of its transparency, makes the work visible and permanent.