BI-NI A DUE A DUE

Paola Valenzano

Cristina Calderini

Bi-ni a due a due

PRINTING, FOLDING, EMBROIDERY AND SEWING ON ACETATE AND BRASS.

2023

4 fragile solids

Bi-ni came to life from the hands of Paola Valenzano, visual artist and Cristina Calderini, goldsmith artist, dialoguing with each other. The work consists of four solids – but fragile – that beckon precious stones with their many facets and combine some opposites: transparency /opacity; lightness / heaviness; realism / abstraction.

Paola used photos printed on acetate and embroidered with cotton thread, depicting the inner courtyard of Porto Fluviale, pulsating heart of the place and a space open to social exchanges. The base material, light and transparent, is folded according to geometric criteria that allow the creation of regular or irregular solid figures.

The metallic elements created by Cristina, triangles of different sizes later integrated into the solids through seams and pierced according to the precise criteria of the language used, bring the opposite qualities: those of opacity and heaviness, abstraction and symbol.

The language chosen is that of the Morse alphabet, a more hermetic code than the ordinary and an exquisitely sensorial one which, moreover, makes use of the essential elements of visual language: the dot and the line. On the brass surface, again with the use of the thread, the words inscribed recall the content that the work wants to communicate: bini, two by two, to remind us that “together we can”, we can build relationships, objects, projects; Aedificanda Loca and its translation “spaces to build relationships”; P. F., the initials of Porto Fluviale, a place where this “manufacturing” was possible.

Thus, even the search for a language itself triggered the creation of elements that could merge the skills of the two artists: the work for the creation of the jewel and the use of metal on the one hand; the passage of the thread that generates signs and traces to be deciphered on images, at least in its intentions, both evocative and ambiguous.