Nanni Valentini

Starting from Terra Animata, misurazione della terra, 1967, a video and photographic work by Luca Maria Patella that was part of some important exhibitions both in Italy and abroad, Il Ponte gallery present at miart 2024 a selection of works in which “earth” is the main subject, both from a formal and conceptual point of view. The artworks come from artists with whom the gallery has worked over the years.
From the performative-process research evident in the video and photographs by Patella, we move to earth meant as the planet, investigated by Eliseo Mattiacci with Parafulmine, Attirafulmine, Neutro, 1975, who puts us in touch with its energetic sphere. Joe Tilson’s Earth Mantra, 1971/72, proposes – through the repetition of the word earth – an anticipation of the modern attention toward the planet.
Nature and soil are the starting point of the artworks by Claudio Costa and Gianfranco Baruchello, who, with different approaches, elaborate their research around anthropological and agri-cultural matters in which humanity sinks its roots.
An important fire clay in 14 elements by Nanni Valentini recreates on the wall an actual territory, that, with its Vulcan materiality, acts as a counterpoint to a Paesaggio (landscape) in iron steel on the ground by Giuseppe Spagnulo, both from the Eighties.
The booth count also four more recent artworks, Artificio Naturale, 2011-22, with its five big ideal stones by Paolo Icaro; the Pierluigi Fresia‘s 2023 photography Whatever happens will never have your name, in which the fascination with photography links to an aphorism that unbalances our vision; Marina Ballo Charmet‘s photograph, Con la coda dell’occhio # 39 (With the corner of the eye #39), is part of a group of photographs from 1993-94, in which she overturns our usual vision, placing the lens at the eye level of a child and the rock Margine, 2020, by Renato Ranaldi, to whose authentic material color is applied “at the margin”, pushing it on the balance between nature and artifice.