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IMPORTANCE
AND NECESSITY IN
GUIDO
MORETTI’S SCULPTURE
Guido
Moretti was born to be a sculptor. He lives in direct contact with reality in its most concrete
form, based in the dimension of space.
For him the value of objects should not be illusory, as in
paintings, it must be made real. His
creativity is only satisfied within a three-dimensional structure.
We must
set off from here to understand this artist’s poetical quality.
His sculptures pass through two successive phases, linked by the
common denominator of a love of nature, but set apart by completely
different methods and characteristics.
In the first phase, which lasts about fifteen years, Moretti sees
sculpture as an anchor of existential rescue, it is a means for finding
oneself: in copying the
concrete forms present in nature, and above all the human figure,
following traditional methods, he tries to put his own doubts and fears
into a concrete form, to bring them to light, to annihilate them in a
personal catharsis, for his own benefit.
It is art which mimics psychological analysis, therapeutic art,
with the culture of psychoanalysis behind it.
This first phase ends with the emblematic work Homage to Freud: a sort
of self-portrait mask initially moulded in plaster with successive
layers, starting with the image of the child, covered over and absorbed
by a skull, the symbol of the discovery of death, and again by the
existential image of despair, the scream; at the end the sculptor makes
a lateral slit in the external mask with his scalpel, enabling us to
move progressively backwards through the essential stages of the
formation of the human being, all in an extremely dense symbolic
synthesis.
The therapeutic success of this art form is proven by Moretti’s
progression to a second phase of sculpture, which could be defined as
playful. The sculptor’s
lively exuberance, no longer held back by psychological angst, is set
free in a creative game of surprising methodical richness. The sculptures are no longer based on the culture of
self-discovery, but more prevalently on the sculptor’s scientific
knowledge of nature, moving from the analytical geometry learned and
loved at school to the mathematics and physics studied at university.
The creative process is based not on self-doubts, but on
centuries of abstract theory, of mathematical explanations of nature,
and the stimulus of concrete models of composite beauty seen, for
example, in sea shells.
Thus
develop stratifications, the
first method of the new phase: layer
after layer a mathematical figure grows upon itself; it is modulated
harmoniously in space and seems to float in the light.
Butterfly, Big Blue
Vibration and Colour Vibration are a few examples of these aerial
objects, which are a concrete translation of an extraordinary mental
standpoint.
Moretti’s work concentrates on exploring possible methods of
transferring flat figures to the third dimension.
A new solution comes in the form of rotations
with which a sculpture is made on the basis of variable geometry. A
geometric design is repeated several times on a plane in a concentric
pattern, then pivots are used to form a mobile sculpture which anyone
can modify with infinite variations.
The results are Maternity,
Rectangles in Metamorphosis, Fertility Totem and many other mobile
structures which allow the spectator to participate in the form’s
creation. A centripetal harmony, owing to the pivots, characterises
these objects that are bestowed with a powerful experimental fascination.
Another step forward resulting in a real leap in the quality of
method, is Moretti’s use of orthogonal intersections.
Two adjacent faces of a cube or a parallelepiped become the
sculpture’s generating elements, male and female.
The figures drawn on the two surfaces originate mainly from
abstract mathematics (sinusoids, cosinusoids etc.), but also free-style
designs (for example, the outline of the hands of the sculptor’s son,
Raffaele) which represent the genetic male and female characteristics.
The
outline drawings are followed by the orthogonal synthesis of the two
cuts in the volume, the mysteriously rich moment which brings unexpected
new life to the shapes, as in nature.
Moretti is no longer copying the appearance of nature, but rather
its indecipherable internal creative process.
The genetic changes on the volume’s two surfaces, which are
potentially infinite, are entrusted to the sculptor’s choice, a
function which is performed at random in nature.
The artist never knows what the final result of his intervention
will be; but genetic manipulation is always accompanied by aesthetic
taste which decides, once the operation is finished, whether the work of
art should be kept or thrown away (somewhat like the fate of the unhappy
creatures on the cliffs of Tarpea).
Among the sculptures that have passed the test are
Quark, Spatial Spiral and Spatial Dance of Circles.
But Moretti’s genetic ingenuity has yet more surprises in store.
Like DNA, he tries using the figures of Lissajous, which comprise
an orthogonal synthesis of two harmonious movements, as in a pendulum.
In this case it is possible to trace in the final result a sort
of genetic mapping or family tree going back three generations.
It was actually whilst working on one of these harmonious
intersections that the artist realised that even the waste materials
could have an aesthetic relevance to the work as a whole.
The result of this brainwave can be seen in a recent sculpture, Egypt.
Thinking he was doing just a normal orthogonal intersection, Moretti
drew two identical cosinusoids, each framed by four triangles, on the
two adjacent faces. The
design seemed to be a very effective symbol of Egypt, with the River
Nile self-reflected against the background of the Pyramids.
He started the sculpting operation and realised to his amazement
not only that the Nile was symbolised in six different ways, but also
that the pieces cut out formed two perfect pyramids. It may be possible
to investigate the abstract mathematical rules resulting in this great
harmony, but the artist did not care for analysis:
suffice it to say that physics bowed to the artist who had the
aesthetic end in sight. Moretti
thus shows a centaurean nature, a fusion of science and art which is so
stimulating and relevant in the light of our contemporary civilisation,
because it responds poetically to a need to humanise a world at risk of
slipping more and more into technological alienation.
The
artist’s volcanic temperament led him to discover mobility in a work
of art with a variation of his orthogonal
intersection, which he calls living
form. The different
sculptures made from a single volume (by separation
he always emphasises, not by adding
or removing as in traditional
sculpture) can be either assembled separately or put together in
ever-changing forms. The
most recent development in this mobility, which is restructured using
the rotation method, has a new experimental intersection grafted on it. Moretti
designed a square and a triangle not on two adjacent faces but on two
opposite faces of the cube: the
result was New Generation Quark,
with varied geometry.
At the moment Moretti is working with his usual genetic alchemy on the
grand symbols of humanity, for example the couple Yin
(female) and Yang (male), and
on the use of dry copper engraving for his abstract modules.
The
theoretical challenges implicit in Moretti’s work naturally deserve
much room for thought, but, this being art, what counts above all else
is the results.
Giovanni Stipi
Desenzano del Garda, April
1997
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