MATTER SYMBOLOGIES

Adriano Maraldi and Decio Zoffoli cannot be categorized as a painter and as a sculptor but as two true manipulators of matter. The extensive and varied selection of works in this exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to comprehend and understand that, behind each artistic expression, lies primarily a manual performance followed by an accurate study of the technique within the craftsmanship.

Maraldi's career, ranging from the thorough knowledge of chalcography to the use of earth mixed with acrylics, leads him to a continuous search for a transparency he projects onto a ductile material such as methacrylate. Zoffoli's works consist of iron, copper, clay, cast glass and cement. These are materials the artist is able to forge with great wisdom thanks to the training undertaken over the years at his father's workshop. The predominant use of cement combined with textile and iron leads him to an investigation into unusual forms, making his characters both mighty and elegant in shape. An almost psychological study of contents, as is felt in the works in cast glass, a transformation from which derives the constant need to recycle. A recycling that can be understood only through the creation of the components themselves.

Two apparently opposite paths, which find their point of union in the technical ability founded on practical experience. It is precisely to this concept and core subject of their works that the artists trust their existential restlessness, bitter about a society, in which artisans are sucked into the deepest oblivion, where too often culture is a non-culture.

A group of people made of mere Chatter is the answer by Decio Zoffoli, a sculpture in which the observer is encouraged to physically interact with the characters, a hymn to communication, in which individuals are called to participate in a conversation made of generations. A world consisting of sounds, which continues and splits into a feeble resonance, as in Echo of the sea, a work comparable to the gill of a fish, the slow flowing of the voice reproduces itself in the listening to its own echo.

The message that, after all, society can still redeem itself from present chaos, can be understood from the collection of works performed in 2011, titled by Maraldi: Three friends in common, Beach umbrella in liberty, Coloured thoughts, figures of giants in crystallized setting, gladiators of the new generation that, although rigid and impassive, retain a degree of control. Turned to the search into colour, their watchful and careful eyes never cross the visitor's because they await the blooming of a new intellectual rebirth. An awareness that is lit up by knowledge and that the artist indicates in the representation of the plexiglass books, the rediscovery of that pleasant gesture that induces the flipping through the pages of an ancient book that the modern touch screens will soon replace in the era of digital revolution.

The sculpture in iron and cement The wings of freedom by Zoffoli is about social ties, seen in bound hands and wrists, constraints that prevent man from freeing himself from abuses and continuous injustice that requires the civil living in a community and that, sooner or later every individual must account for his omission. Corruption, abuse from which the individual feels deceived, is concealed in the guise of the work entitled Judge. Pictured as a smooth and sharp blade, it leans against a solemn figure, impartial and humble to the eyes of the world on which the artist as first is captured rising up as judgeof himself.

Exhibition and catalogue edited by Barbara Rossi

Maraldi observes as a solitary spectator the agony of a corrupted and whimsical class, seeking refuge in the faithfulness of unspoiled nature. Bright coloured leaping fish, enriched by gold earths and streaks, emerge from water and dive into the sea waves. They are laden with Matter Symbologies, a metaphor that is at the same time subtle and crude, a scream of pain made of pure protest. The artist sees the confused and bewildered fish as useless sperm turned insane, disoriented and without a definite goal. They no longer are able to communicate with each other, an interrupted dialogue which is at the same time emblematic, ceasing to exist in the contemporary relationship between man and woman, an expression that can be seen in the couple depicted in the painting entitled The artist's friends.