Appunti, 2016
wood, plaster, pigments OP5477C, armenian bole, silver leaf and punching made with a Pozidriv-tip screwdriver (in Italian it is called “starlike screwdriver” because its tip is star-shaped), 113 x 100 cm
Courtesy: the artis and GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins / Habana
Exhibition view ORNAGHI & PRESTINARI/ NYU CASA ITALIANA ZERILLI-MARIMO, New York 2016
Photo by: Paula Abreu Pita
.Their practice also involves an investigation into the industrial and craftwork production processes that have accompanied human development me. The works of Ornaghi & Prestinari often feature the concept of care and repair in restoring the object’s functional and aesthetic qualities to circulation by balancing increases in aesthetic quality against an apparent loss of efficiency. Technique and technologies are used by the artists as the results of a process of human beings’ knowledge and awareness and their mental and intellectual abilities. At the water treatment plant, the water is subjected to a series of treatments for its purification and return to the river. “Stille” offers a reflection on the concepts linked to the idea of circular economy in regard to ecology and circular process as the utopia of perpetual motion machine, From water and its recovery through processes of separation and filtration, materials are extracted that are then rendered inert and assume the form of dark powders and granulates. For the artists, the treatment of waste waters is configured as the constant movement of refinement inside circular piping and vats, a system that takes into account both the wellbeing of the territory’s economy and the physical wellbeing of its citizens and environment. “The works created for this show at Villa Pacchiani must be considered a unity of suggestions linked to movement, circularity, aesthetic aspects and physical characteristics, and the materials encountered during the process”, adds Ilaria Mariotti. Sculptures that are configured as vats and tanks, such as Paolina, in which the famous work by Antonio Canova (Paolina Bonaparte come Venus Victrix), is revisited in ceramic in order to become a tank for aquatic plants. Fragile, household materials like ceramic are placed into dialogue with the metal (iron, steel) used in industrial production that are just as much products of the working process themselves in which fire and earth are indispensable. These materials are associated with the “products” of the work cycles of the Water Treatment Plant and the related industrial systems that close the cycle in which the waste water is treated and the sludge and the other