Wind SW 2km/h weak

Lodi, October 28, 2023

This is the title of the solo exhibition by Mariateresa Sartori, curated by Carlo Orsini, which take place at Platea Palazzo Galeano and the exhibition space Platea Projects in Via Maddalena 6.

Sartori is an artist of rarefied refinement whose practice obsessively oscillates between two poles of inspiration: science and poetry. Most often, her works start from the analysis of rigorous scientific data to arrive at a poetic expression that makes her language unique in the contemporary art scene. The continuous oscillation between the pursuit of the absolute objectivity of scientific data and the writing of one's own subjective feelings generates works of great visual and conceptual power.

In her own words, the artist explains her research: "I am interested in reality: whether it be human behavior, leaves, the sound of languages, or the sound of waves, I am interested in the analysis and translation into another code of the observed data."

The inspiration for the work for Platea Palazzo Galeano, which stems from a previous experience conducted in the lagoon of Venice, is to relinquish the total authorship of the work in favor of a natural element: the wind. "To set the anemometer in motion," Mariateresa Sartori comments, "on the edge of the river and verify that what I hope for actually happens, namely that the light breeze from the Adda river meeting the land breeze produces uncertain and contradictory movements with changes of direction." This indeed happened on October 28, 2023, as recalled by the title of the exhibition, on the banks of the Adda river in Lodi.

The artist installs an anemometer on sheets of cotton paper covered with silver powder fusaggine, to which threads of wool are applied. The wind activates the rotation of the anemometer, which in this way "writes" more or less intense circles according to the activity of the wind. The "writing" is then fixed and photographed to be later printed in large dimensions.

For a year, the artist recorded daily meteorological data for the Lodi area, also using information from the Meteorological Atlas provided by the Meteorological Service of the Italian Air Force, which reports statistical data over large time sections of the Italian territory (pressure, humidity, temperature, wind speed, etc.). With this process of acquisition and learning, Sartori prepared for the encounter with the wind on the banks of the Adda river, acting as a diligent typesetter of the mysterious alphabet of natural forces using artisanal means.

The exhibition continues in the exhibition space of Platea Projects, which features a video projection by the artist showing slightly blurred images of the rotation of the anemometer, a selection of original drawings produced by the wind in the Venetian lagoon and on the banks of the Adda, as well as a series of technical devices used in the work, documenting the empirical-scientific attitude triggered by artisanal means in the execution of the artwork.

Starting from Tuesday, March 12, Mariateresa Sartori's exhibition will be moved to the Platea Projects space at Via Maddalena 3.
The exhibition will remain open until March 17 as part of MUSE in LAUS, an initiative organized by the Province of Lodi and the Municipality of Lodi.

Sartori currently collaborates with the Michela Rizzo gallery in Venice, which participated in the realization of this exhibition, and with Studio G7 in Bologna.

Platea and Mariateresa Sartori would like to thank Colonel Adriano Raspanti, Head of the Meteorology Office of the General Office of Military Aviation and Meteorology of the Air Force, and Maddalena Osti, of Mariateresa Sartori's studio.