Equorea – 9/12. Fabio Roncato

From September 5th to September 28th 2023, BUILDINGBOX presents the artworks Momentum by the artist Fabio Roncato (Rimini, 1982).

Water is a chemical compound that under normal conditions of temperature and pressure appears as a two-phase system, namely as a liquid and a vapour; if the temperature exceeds the freezing threshold, it changes to a solid state, becoming ice. By its nature, it is a changeable element; on planet Earth, water goes through a continuous cycle (water cycle) that consists of an incessant exchange between atmosphere, soil, surface water, deep water and living beings. Among surface waters are rivers, perennial watercourses fed by rainfall, melting snow or ice, or underground aquifers.

Fabio Roncato’s research and attempt to capture this specific classification of water is based on this confrontation. In fact, Momentum consists of sculptures that the artist creates from the contact between two liquid elements, melted wax and the water currents of a river. The material, heated on the shore, is placed while still hot in the river, which cools and solidifies it, creating the shape of the entire sculpture within a fraction of a second. This reveals both the autonomy of the process, free from any planning of the work’s final appearance, and the limited amount of time, an instant, in which the process takes place – hence the title, Momentum, which refers to the single and unique moment contained in the sculpture generated, in a stable and definitive form. Finally, casting: lost wax makes it possible to complete this process with a material, aluminium, which is solid and sculptural, imprisoning forever in time the fragility and vagueness of an instant.

For the project Equorea (of seas, ice, clouds and other waters), presented at BUILDINGBOX, Roncato is setting up two sculptures from the Momentum research, proposing a reflection on the experience and perception of time, on the concept of an “instant of time”, trying to formalise a sculptural process capable of capturing its form and revealing its appearance.

The exhibition is the ninth appointment of Equorea (of seas, ice, clouds and other waters), a project curated by Giulia Bortoluzzi, which involves, from January 7h, 2023 to January 9th, 2024, twelve Italian contemporary artists invited to explore the topic of water in twelve monthly solo shows, scheduled in a sequence that follows the lunar calendar.

The title references Eugenio Montale’s poem Falsetto (1923), published in the collection Ossi di Seppia (1925). The poem revolves around a girl called Esterina, described as an ocean creature (“equorea creatura”), and frames the sea as a metaphor for life and the wonder of living without worrying about the future: “The power that tempers you is water, in water you find and renew yourself.” Montale’s work picks up on the way we habitually associate water with life, a notion echoed by Mircea Eliade in A History of Religious Ideas (1949), which describes it as the total of all “virtualities”, the matrix for all potential life, the foundation of the whole world. Water is at the origin of all cosmic manifestation, symbolizing the primordial substance from which all forms arise, and to which they return, by regression or cataclysm. Water lies at the beginning and end of every historical or cosmic cycle. It will always exist, and never be alone, because it is germinative, encompassing the virtualities of all forms in its own undivided unity. In cosmogony, mythology, ritual, and iconography, water performs the same function: it precedes all forms and sustains all of creation. A symbol of life, it gives universal becoming a cyclical structure.

Following the cyclical pattern of the astronomical tides (which occur when the Moon, Earth and Sun are in alignment), at each full moon in the year 2023, BUILDINGBOX will play host to the work of twelve Italian contemporary artists, who have been asked to explore the theme of water: Ludovico Bomben (Pordenone, 1982), Jaya Cozzani (Mumbai/Kanchipuram, 1982),  Barbara De Ponti (Milano, 1975), Gaspare (Terlizzi, 1983), Michele Guido (Aradeo, 1976), Silvia Mariotti (Fano, 1980), Fabio Marullo (Catania, 1973), Elena Mazzi (Reggio Emilia, 1984), Ignazio Mortellaro (Palermo, 1978), Fabio Roncato (Rimini, 1982), Michele Spanghero (Gorizia, 1979), Virginia Zanetti (Fiesole, 1981).

The works presented in Equorea (of seas, ice, clouds and other waters) are site-specific (some are being exhibited for the first time, others are reworkings of previous pieces) and conceive of water as an emblem of all natural elements, and more generally as a form of life and creative potential. As a topic, water not only intrigues and inspires, but also elicits specific reflections on the future of our planet. Indeed, the life of all organisms on Earth depends on the presence of water and is shaped by its mutations: when it deteriorates, life becomes unsustainable.

There is as yet no proven scientific explanation of the origin of water on our planet. Whether generated by comets or meteorites crashing to earth, or volcanic eruptions in distant millennia, in the collective imagination it is associated with the mythological moment of creation, which contains the potential existence of all forms of life.