Sergio Risaliti

​

Just as each of the various kinds of matter

has its formal vocation, so has each form its material vocation.

​(Henri Focillon The Life of Forms in Art, 1934)

 

 

The Galleria Stein is presenting a series of new works by Remo Salvadori from Wednesday November 6. Seven of them are installed on the wall in the gallery’s large room and are made of a combination of cut and bent metal sheets, superimposed on one another to generate complex geometric shapes, but always based on the square, which remains a constant figure. At the center of the space we find a structure composed of different elements, including a circle of braided steel wires, four bell jars filled with water and a thin golden wire in the shape of a ring. The works on the wall have in common the title Nel momento (In the Moment) and a practice that has been repeated in identical fashion but with results that are always different ever since 1974. It is a work based on squaring off, on cutting and bending, on research into the solid and the void, into light and darkness, into repetition and difference, into numerical relationships, measurements and golden ratios. Nel momento is a resonant form that alters the quality of the space around it and activates an inner experience in close connection with the open and with others. The choice of metals is based on a deep understanding of their properties and vibrations stemming from an age-old body of knowledge that was spread north and south, east and west through the alchemy, sacred science and anthroposophy which connect earth and heaven, humanity and its origin, the inner self with the world of life and the infinite universe. Each element or material, each metal or color, is not inert and detached from the rest. On the contrary it propagates its properties and its information, like “a slow vortex that starting from the center spreads out to the extremes like a wave of life” (G. Celant), acting on the physical and the mental: from the visible to the invisible, from the conceptual to the concrete, from high to low, between materiality and immateriality. While the process generated by an ideal matrix, a grid, is always the same, what is different is the propagation through voids and solids, light and shade, between open and closed planes, between positive and negative, hot and cold.

 

At the center of the room we find a composite work, constructed as a fluid structure starting from the larger circle, that of Continuo infinito presente (Continuous Infinite Present), containing four bell jars turned upside down and filled with water right to the brim. Continuo infinito presente embodies manual skill and metaphysical imagination. In it is reflected the eternal nature of an energy that propagates time and space, earth and cosmos, visible and invisible, light and darkness endlessly and in the present moment. As H. de Balzac wrote: ‘Specialism consists in seeing the things of the material world as well as those of the spiritual world in their original and consequential ramifications.” With Continuo infinito presente Salvadori is referring to the energy inherent both in the act of making and in materials, i.e. in the exchange of energy that occurs between artistic practice and the nature of things, between subject and object, instigating a relationship of mutual understanding between creative practice and observation, between work and observer. A way of being in cyclical time, just as the form of his Continuo infinito presente is cyclical: a braided metal ring without head or tail, like the Ouroboros, the figure symbolic of the eternal round of seasons, days and instants. For Salvadori otherness is an active subject consubstantial with the relationship between artist and created object, as well as between artist and world. It is necessary and fundamental to keep every level of life and every dimension of reality harmoniously connected, from the microcosm to the macrocosm and vice versa.

 

The bell jars are all the same height (70 cm) but each has a different diameter—from the largest of 52 cm to the smallest of 37 cm. The water passes from a motionlessness state to a vibration on its surface and in its depths that is a response to external movements. The liquid looks almost like a solid, but life going on around it in the room disturbs it to the point where the water may spill slightly over the edge, as if it were weeping, forming a trickle, a spring of further life. The jars each have a different weight, a different vibration and resonance. Each jar is a Lente liquida (Liquid Lens), given this name to make us think about the mutable nature of the process of becoming and the fluidity of our feelings. The four vessels are arranged to form a four-pointed star, recognizable in the gap left between the edges where they touch and clasp one another as if in an embrace. This last figure is in turn surrounded and emphasized by a ring of gold, a halo. The star is also the heart of the composition. In this configuration, the fifth circle, the one in gold, signifies the relationship with the absolute, the correlation between inner consciousness and the yearning for infinity. Everything is connected, the parts create a whole, a single body made up of different elements that transmit quality and energy to one another, in a reciprocal exchange, just as happens with our body when it is in harmony with the inside and the outside. Salvadori reminds us that our body is made of water and our gaze is directed upward, so that our feelings and desires reach out toward the light. In its “centering,” this composition holds a dialogue with the seven works mounted on the wall that are watching over the sensitive body and feeding it with dreams and visions like angelic presences. If the metals vibrate, picking up particles of light and reflecting them back into their surroundings, the water that fills the bell jar vibrates, ripples, breathes and trembles perceptibly.

Seven is not a random choice; the number has a symbolic value and since time immemorial has guided the hand of the artist, architect and composer in the imagination and production of their creations. There are seven colors in the rainbow and there are seven planets that influence from the sky our choices, personal character and even mood, acting on both the physical and the ethereal plane. Wing-footed Mercury, messenger of the gods, flies swiftly in space and is a psychopomp; bellicose Mars is associated with fire; Jupiter with air and Saturn, who exercises such influence on the mood and fantasy of the creative genius, with the earth. To these four should be added the three lunar phases: the full moon or Sol, the crescent moon or Luna, the new moon or Venus that is as light and clear as the air. The first priests made reference to seven, basing their sacred ceremonies and meditations on septenary rhythms in connection with the science of the stars. Seeds were sown, plants pruned and grafted and the fruits of the earth harvested respecting these cycles. Everything was connected and the correspondences guided the hand and directed the gaze. The model of the seven planets visible in the sky was used to mark out the duration of an existence between birth and death, “life from childhood to old age, the day from the slumber of dawn to the drowsiness of evening, sickness from early symptom to crisis,” as Elémire Zolla wrote. To the seven planets correspond the seven metals: gold, silver, mercury, copper, iron, tin and lead. There are invisible and miraculous channels that transfer, from the heavens above to the earth below, qualities and powers, benefits, positive or negative energy depending on the use and purpose. We are dazzled by both the golden Sun and the black Sun, the occult planet that is Saturn, i.e. lead, through which neither light nor radiation can pass. Mars is hot and dry iron. Silver is the cold light of the moon, which is also Proserpine or Diana; and then we have liquid Mercury and Venus-copper, the closest to gold, which when mixed with arsenic turns as white as silver. We dig in the depths of the earth to bring it to the forge, and it is damp and cold, for others damp and warm, perpetuating the same doubt over the nature of the planet. Venus-copper is emanation, femininity, the counterpart of Sun-gold. Once cleaned and polished, copper becomes a mirror, Venus’s instrument par excellence. But when love and desire are too focused on the self, then the reflected image can become a death trap, the abyss of narcissism. Then comes tin, metallic Jupiter, damp, warm and airy, which heals the melancholy that when clasped to the breast darkens and weakens the heart. And for this reason tin is associated with the color orange, as heated as sexual desire.

 

The connection between the artist (born in 1947) and the Galleria Stein goes all the way back to 1988, the year that the works of Salvadori—Tuscan by birth but Milanese by adoption—were first shown at the original location of the gallery in Turin. Since then his work has been shown fourteen times, between group and solo exhibitions, up until 2017, the last one staged in the Stein’s spaces at Pero, reflecting the strength of this relationship. For Salvadori the Galleria Stein has been a place of elective affinities, with artists from earlier generations and with his contemporaries. The exhibitions have represented moments of synthesis and exchange, opening and dialogue, in a process leading to the shaping of an artistic practice that has evolved along the lines of a tradition dating back to Renaissance Humanism and extending all the way to Modernism. Between Salvadori’s language and that of other artists whose work has been shown at the Galleria Stein since the seventies, we can discern a “certain family air,” as the philosopher Wittgenstein would put it. Something that is also attested by Salvadori’s close relationship with a number of them: Mario and Marisa Merz, Alighiero Boetti. A familiarity that was not just of an artistic nature, and still less one of membership of a group or “current,” but instead of a personal character and rooted in an inner, poetic and certainly not casual or ideological kinship. From these encounters and exchanges Salvadori seems to have drawn—as Celant has noted—indications “on the philosophical components, on the tactile manifestations of the artistic research of the seventies, in particular the attention to the ideal and material domain, as well as to the process of metamorphosis of the object, with its shifting morphology, derived both from the performative act of the creator and the internal mobility of the material [...] in the artifact.” From this point on he would develop a practice of art as an act of sensitive understanding and creative transmission of the invisible and the unknowable through forms and materials (the elements of the earth, ideal geometric figures) in a sort of respectful but revealing fusion “between maker and artifact, artist and model, between viewer and work.”

 

So for us to get in tune with Salvadori’s works we need to comprehend how and when his artistic practice “ties the earth to universal harmony,” the individual soul to the anima mundi, the lines of life to those of the constellations. Which also signifies connecting opposite poles, understanding the intrinsic qualities of materials, their energy, superfluity and influence, the correspondences and links between the different levels, between earth and cosmos, between earthly body and heavenly bodies. Into this original but inexhaustible role play also fit the forms and the geometric figures, to which corresponds, for instance, the harmonizing and transfiguring action of mathematical proportions and golden ratios. Separating these levels, which are in reality substantial and not accidental agents, means not seeing, not listening, not understanding: in the first place ourselves, for it is only out of knowledge of the self that comes any relationship with others, with the world of life, with the universe as a whole. In other words, considering abstract and geometric forms solely from a formal perspective would mean reducing one’s own existence to the narrow and trivial circle of arid materialism and the most cynical and debasing positivism. Thinking about elements, i.e. materials, only from a materialist and functional point of view would be to deny the existence of the intrinsic factors, the connections between physical, biological and spiritual dimensions that even the most advanced scientific research has no difficulty in recognizing and accepting, as in the case of quantum physics.

To talk with Remo Salvadori of art, materials, forms, of mise-en-scène, signifies overcoming prejudices and fears, superficiality and arrogance, in order to tackle de     pth and breadth of horizons with lightness and trust, with open-mindedness and curiosity. Explaining the arrangement of the works on show he reminded me (in 2020) that “it is an event, an occurrence that I always find new and surprising, and so I sense that I have to remain in silence before their correspondences.” He then felt the need to make reference to a poetics of the “underground,” with which it is possible to interpret “our human existence and the earth as a living being, its metals, the nature of its substance.” And to repeat some words like a mantra: “remember, recall, recollect, with mind, heart and limbs, to give the “moment” its right presence, being here!”

Salvadori often speaks of the “moment,” which is a recurrent title for his works. It is a key word, one that sounds like a musical movement, as if to say: “adagio con sentimento,” or “lento e poi allegro.” It is a key to understanding his vision of the world and of our fragile existence, which is revealed to us, accepted and experienced as passage, transit, generous expenditure. So Nel momento takes on enormous significance, revealing itself to be an experience and an initiatory practice, hinting that day after day the task facing a person is to grasp the being of Da-sein, of being there in the moment, here and now, and that in the moment we can discover the key to being in the Da-sein, more banally to a “sense of life” that he sees as on a par with the other senses: hearing, sight, taste, smell, touch.

 

For Salvadori everyday action, simple acts done on a daily basis, work in the studio—the one on Via Tadino in Milan or the one in the Tuscan hills, at San Zio, near Leonardo’s birthplace of Vinci—or the preparation of an exhibition, the mounting of a work, cannot be or appear to be events separate from one another. Everything, in life as in the work of the artist, in the work as object as in its relationship with the visitor, is connected and the transformation acts from the inside to the outside and vice versa, involving people, forging ties between them, affinities and friendships based in part on common philosophies of life, the circulation of feelings and utopian ideas, with a movement and a rhythm that is organic, and that gently and slowly seeks stability and serenity. A living and a mode of operation that in its expansion and concentration recalls the breathing of Continuo infinito presente and the revealing openness of Nel momento.

His works arrive in a place—home, museum, square, garden, gallery—as gifts. They hand out salutary messages, allowing us to see and go above and beyond, elsewhere, through solids and voids, in light and in darkness, among reverberations and vibrations. A transmitting and traversing that goes from matter to the body, from the physical to the immaterial, from the earth to the spirit and to heaven. But both day-to-day practice and the exceptional one of the exhibition require concentration, intensity and inner silence from the artist. In fact, the choice of the moment for the work’s installation and of the space in which to display it is always singular and appropriate, the result of conscious intuition and perception. The harmony within the forms, arising from a comprehension of the qualities and energies proper to each element involved, spreads out into the space around them and embraces the people present. Once installed—on the ground or on the wall as on this occasion—the work, the works are integrated into the setting and the surrounding landscape, harmoniously enriching the place, regenerating connections and links between earth and heaven, between living and physical elements, between heart and sun, between heartbeat and breath, reestablishing and reinvigorating the profound communication between nature, art and society, between the self and the many. The titles, for example, tell us that the work is always witness to and proof of something happening in the present, as it is the result of a vertical and circular experience. The work, that is to say, is part of a continuous flow. It is generated in the moment before and reproduced in the one after, in a vertical and circular movement, in the intertwining of time and space, of ancient and modern, of universal and local.

 

I have found among my papers some notes that it may be worth sharing with today’s visitor. In them I had written: Nel momento is beginning and initiation, it is a visual dance in which the body is engaged every day, like the dancer who always starts again from his basic grammar at the barre. Just as piano players have their keys and their notes, Salvadori manipulates the seven metals and colors, the squaring, cutting and bending, the multiple, infinite combinations and variations that are generated with each new day, in the moment. From

the linguistic-formal point of view the work Nel momento recalls the sensitivity of mind and heart to be found in Bach’s modular compositions, in his The Well-Tempered Clavier and Goldberg Variations. Experience of a continuous infinite present revealed by a geometric design and by a cutting that, bend after bend, is made, is reproduced and is renewed in different ways. Time is constructed by modifying space. Expanding the dimension of the self we experience the disappearance of the ego, now absorbed into a whole between cosmic breath and bodily sensation. From darkness to splendor, from the sensible to the transcendent. Nel momento is a work on the solid and the void, on light and darkness. It is above all a work on sound, on resonance and vibration. Each time, “in the moment” is a sounded form, one that alters the quality of the space around it and activates an experience of being in the world in close connection with the open and with others. The present moment defines the opening by extension to the infinite and to the inclusion of the living between proximity and distance. The job of art is to incorporate whatever else is still outside the subjective horizon. The present moment of art unites the separate poles of advent and epiphany. The infinite is in the material that flowers in resonant beauty and luminous presence.

 

Perceiving the beauty, sensing the vibration, contemplating the light, accepting the dark and the negative, the disturbing and the mysterious, like when you stroll in a garden, like when you go for a walk by the sea, along with others. If the material is in itself luminous, the work of that material luminosity offers us a presentiment of the numinous immaterial matrix and lets us enjoy it already. If the form disappears its root is eternal, Mario Merz has told us. And it is on this generous opening up of meaning that Remo Salvadori has based his journey, a marvelous one for us.