Rilievi, 1996

Bronze-aluminium castings

Rilievi di Umberto Cavenago

Arte a Peccioli, 1996
The first time that Umberto Cavenago found himself designing a work commissioned by the Municipality of Peccioli dates back to 1996, the year in which, as part of the initiative entitled “Arte a Peccioli”, he created the permanent work Rilievi in the hamlet of Montecchio. The work consists of a series of octagonal bronze elements, placed on the footsteps of the main road of the village and in precise positions obtained from the survey carried out by a team of geologists and geobiologists. Hired by the artist to carry out the study of the terrain, the technicians were tasked with detecting the "Hartmann's net": a system of lines that form a square mesh grid with its points of intersection, called "radiant nodes". As in Feng Shui, ancient geomantic art, geobiolobia also provides the basis for reorganizing the orientations of objects within one's domestic space.
Antonella Soldaini, 2020
Hartmann's shirt
The relief of the “Hartmann’s net” gave Cavenago the possibility of locating the radiant nodes along the road of the village in order to mark them with the bronze signs embedded in the floor which, thanks to their installation points, have indicated to the inhabitants of the houses, located along via della chiesa di Montecchio, the possible continuation of Hartmann’s net up to the inside of the houses. The knowledge of the orthogonal design of the mesh thanks to the relief made on the road has thus become a suggestion for a possible repositioning, within one’s home, of the furnishings in the different rooms, such as the orientation of one’s bed. The operational strategy adopted by Cavenago in Montecchio aimed to reduce the visibility of the artistic gesture to the minimum in favour of highlighting something already existing and already designed.
Antonella Soldaini, 2020
The monument
These were the years in which the artist measured himself against the concept of the monument, the axioms of which he aimed, through his installations, to undermine and highlight the obsolescence and inadequacy of its meaning: Leon (1996) ) and the more recent Leopoldo (2019) are works that touch, in an ironic and subtle manner, on values, such as those of patriotism and heroism, that have always been associated with the concept of celebration in public works. To the obvious static and immovable nature of the monument on a pedestal Cavenago contrasted the suggestion of decelebrating displacement.
Antonella Soldaini, 2020
Everywhere but invisible
The work of Umberto Cavenago (who represented Italy at the São Paulo Biennial in 1996) in Montecchio may go completely unnoticed to the distracted eye. In vain you will look for monumental forms, obvious architecture or ostentatious epiphanies of this presence that, instead, has managed to insert itself into the urban context in a subtle, almost cerebral manner. The work is, in fact, everywhere, but almost invisible. The paved pavement of Montecchio is studded with octagonal bronze tiles. Their arrangement is not random, but responds to a determined pattern. This pattern forms a grid, a network at whose intersection points the Reliefs are placed. A kind of magnetic field is thus visualised, an invisible wide-meshed grid that imprisons a silent charge of energy. At those nodal points the town accumulates its strength. The sap of everyday stories and gestures...
Lorenzo Fusi

Rilievi, 1996

Bronze-aluminium castings

Rilievi di Umberto Cavenago

Arte a Peccioli, 1996
The first time that Umberto Cavenago found himself designing a work commissioned by the Municipality of Peccioli dates back to 1996, the year in which, as part of the initiative entitled “Arte a Peccioli”, he created the permanent work Rilievi in the hamlet of Montecchio. The work consists of a series of octagonal bronze elements, placed on the footsteps of the main road of the village and in precise positions obtained from the survey carried out by a team of geologists and geobiologists. Hired by the artist to carry out the study of the terrain, the technicians were tasked with detecting the "Hartmann's net": a system of lines that form a square mesh grid with its points of intersection, called "radiant nodes". As in Feng Shui, ancient geomantic art, geobiolobia also provides the basis for reorganizing the orientations of objects within one's domestic space.
Antonella Soldaini, 2020
Hartmann's shirt
The relief of the “Hartmann’s net” gave Cavenago the possibility of locating the radiant nodes along the road of the village in order to mark them with the bronze signs embedded in the floor which, thanks to their installation points, have indicated to the inhabitants of the houses, located along via della chiesa di Montecchio, the possible continuation of Hartmann’s net up to the inside of the houses. The knowledge of the orthogonal design of the mesh thanks to the relief made on the road has thus become a suggestion for a possible repositioning, within one’s home, of the furnishings in the different rooms, such as the orientation of one’s bed. The operational strategy adopted by Cavenago in Montecchio aimed to reduce the visibility of the artistic gesture to the minimum in favour of highlighting something already existing and already designed.
Antonella Soldaini, 2020
The monument
These were the years in which the artist measured himself against the concept of the monument, the axioms of which he aimed, through his installations, to undermine and highlight the obsolescence and inadequacy of its meaning: Leon (1996) ) and the more recent Leopoldo (2019) are works that touch, in an ironic and subtle manner, on values, such as those of patriotism and heroism, that have always been associated with the concept of celebration in public works. To the obvious static and immovable nature of the monument on a pedestal Cavenago contrasted the suggestion of decelebrating displacement.
Antonella Soldaini, 2020
Everywhere but invisible
The work of Umberto Cavenago (who represented Italy at the São Paulo Biennial in 1996) in Montecchio may go completely unnoticed to the distracted eye. In vain you will look for monumental forms, obvious architecture or ostentatious epiphanies of this presence that, instead, has managed to insert itself into the urban context in a subtle, almost cerebral manner. The work is, in fact, everywhere, but almost invisible. The paved pavement of Montecchio is studded with octagonal bronze tiles. Their arrangement is not random, but responds to a determined pattern. This pattern forms a grid, a network at whose intersection points the Reliefs are placed. A kind of magnetic field is thus visualised, an invisible wide-meshed grid that imprisons a silent charge of energy. At those nodal points the town accumulates its strength. The sap of everyday stories and gestures...
Lorenzo Fusi

Detail of the signal, 1996

Photo © Davide Cortassa

Via della Chiesa Montecchio, Peccioli

Detail of the signal, 1996

Detail of the signal, 1996
ill. in
Contatto, Cantiere Peccioli: arte pubblica e progetto urbano, Gli Ori, Pistoia 2003

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