FUSIONE A NEVE PERSA N.05

Fusione a neve persa (“Lost-Snow Casting”) is the title of a sculpture series by the Turin-based duo Alis/Filliol. The two works they are presenting at MAGA, Fusione n. 4 and Fusione n. 5, are intricate structures in which an artificial component - a set of mechanical-looking elements - is combined with a series of more natural details that seem to be of biological, organic origin. Overall, the works feel chilly and enigmatic, and it is difficult for the viewer to reconstruct the process involved in their creation. A process that is fundamental, however, because it shows the scope of the investigation that characterizes the two artists’ practice. After analyzing all the steps in the ancient sculptural technique of “lost wax”, Alis/Filliol have made a simple, decisive change: they replace the refractory earth that usually surrounds the wax core with snow. When a liquid is poured into the structure, it therefore comes into direct contact with the snow, which melts in random ways according to its temperature and density. The new shape that grows out of the original structure - designed by the artists and carved into the block of snow with ordinary sticks - clearly reveals how part of the process of creation is outside of the artists’ control. The complete sculpture appears only at the end of the entire work cycle, surprising them with its combination of foreseeable and unforeseeable elements, which correspond to the alternation of artificial and natural parts we mentioned earlier. In addition to this loss of control over the sculpture-making process, Alis/Filliol’s approach also explores the importance of a transformation that takes place, like everything in nature, independently and in secret, a far cry from the open, participatory processes of Arte Povera. In this way, the two artists emphasize the autonomous value of the sculpture, of the artwork, though it grows out of a complex reflection on matter and its (even inherent) capacity for action.

Alis/Filliol is an artistic duo made up of Davide Gennarino, born in 1979 in Pinerolo, near Turin, and Andrea Respino, born in 1976 in Mondovì, near Cuneo. They live and work in Turin. The relationship between performative act and material trace is at the heart of the body/space dialectic which is fundamental to the artists’ practice. The work of Alis/Filliol thus constantly reexamines the concept of sculpture, in terms of both process and object. Their most recent exhibitions include: Neve Chimica, Progetto della Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Casa Olimpia, Sestriere, 2012; Calco di due corpi in movimento nello spazio, Cripta 747, Turin, 2011; Pleure qui peut, rit qui veut, Premio Furla per l’Arte, VIII Edizione, Palazzo Pepoli, Bologna, 2011.