CaCO3 or the hyperbole of the andamento
by Daniele Torcellini | Mosaique Magazine
CaCO3 is collective of artists formed by Âniko Ferreira da Silva, Giuseppe Donnaloia and Pavlos Mavromatidis. The three artists after crossing different fields they intersect their paths in the laboratories of the “Scuola per il Restauro del Mosaico di Ravenna”, where they share a formative experience, that will become shortly the keystone of their artistic research. An expressive neccessity connected to an analytical approach towards the techniques and the language of the mosaic, will bring to the origin of the collective in 2006. The name, CaCO3, marks clearly the reference to a material that mostly characterizes the mosaic and their research, the calcium carbonate, the main component of the limestone.
The result of the analytical process conducted by the collective is breaking up the surface of the mosaic through the “hyperbole” of two of its most specific caracteristics.
The inclination of the tesserae respect to the plane, expedient refined in Byzantine age, to satisfy the requirments of interaction with the incident light and to embellish the surface by amplifying the rays of lights and the sparkles.The “andamento”, a “Gestalt” characteristic of the mosaic language that has to do with the arrangement of seperate elements, tesserae, in the realization of dynamics of direction, lines.
The rendition into mosaic of a photograph, not chosen by accident, of Berenice Abbott – the lines of the force generated by a magnetic field and made evident by tha natural arrangement of iron filings – opens the way to a dense formal research of the expressive possibilities derived from the inclination of the tesserae. These, to mime the behavior of the iron fillings, cut in the way off the roman opus vermiculatum, reduced size and long and thin shape, are rhythmically arranged according to progressively increasing inclinations, pushed till the uprightness. Movimento n.1 (Movement n.1), in 2007, is the result and the poetic manifesto of the collective. From that point will follow several artworks, result of subsequent and calibrated “scientific testings of laboratory” on the multiple possibilities of modulation of the mosaic-variables taken in exam: inclination, “andamento”, materials and forms. Movimento n.4, Movimento n.7, the imposing Ottagono, Movimento n.12 and Movimento n.14 are some of the best expressive results.
CaCO3 moves its steps from the mosaic and brings the mosaic out from itself. The collective leads a work that could be defined surgical. The mosaic technique is dissected into its constituent elements, analyzed and recomposed in formal solutions of self-expressive value. The obtained results can be placed in a natural dialogue with those of the Minimal art and in particular with the Optical art. In determining a net of contiguity expressions, the artworks of the collective may be ideally placed next to the pre-minimalistic experiences of the texture researches of Robert Ryman or Francesco Lo Savio, to the achromi of Piero Manzoni, to the surfaces of Enrico Castellani and to those dynamic-optical and fluctuating of Julio Le Parc, Gianni Colombo and Dadamaino.
The inclinations and the “andamenti” of the tesserae become a stylistic code of primary importance in defing the lines of force and the internal dynamics of monochrome surfaces, mainly composed with limestone tesserae. The narrow range of the grey shades is structured in movements, relations between figure and background, order and disorder, disorder that becomes order, modulated structures, through a skilful use and a controlled articulation of the tesserae and the “andamenti”.
The relation with the light that brings out the surfaces of the most exposed tesserae is determinant, drops shadows of tesserae on other tesserae and gives forth to the depth of the interstice between tesserae and non-tesserae. Is the relation between the incident light and the inclined arrangement that defines the chiaroscuro dynamics of the surface.
Although in many artworks the compositional organization responds to the necessities of a strict geometrism, simplified, balanced and golden ruled, but always internally dynamic, in other artworks exist an organic, naturalistic and biological imaginary that becomes a reference. Flocks of birds microorganisms, insect colonies, shoal of fishes, are not a necessity of realistic representation, rather than to gather in these natural manifestations, the abstract expressive values, to crystallize them in an inorganic material and preserve, as in a snapshot, the movement.
