L'Arte stanca, 1993, Umberto Cavenago

L'Arte stanca, 1993

Stainless steel and ball bearings
60 × 3200 × 60 cm

IN FORMA, Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato
12 june - 9 september 1993 curated by Ida Panicelli

The mobile bench

In museums, the bench is the place of contemplative rest and a conventional furnishing element.
The mobile steel bench, L'Arte stanca, (1993), resting on a series of supports fixed to the floor and fitted with ball bearings for sliding, allowed the seated audience to cross diagonally through the halls of the Pecci Museum in Prato by touching their ends.
The apparent piece of furniture, being able to slide from one end of the museum to the other, lost its reassuring static nature: its use and its movement conferred "function," a property that, not belonging to the sphere of art, introduces a new attribute on which Cavenago's later work would develop.

Ida Panicelli, In forma (cat.), Charta, Milano 1993

Umberto Cavenago shifts the focus towards constructive geometry, using his mechanical constructions to decipher the coordinates with which spectators transit in the vicinity.

In the apparent systematic approach of the construction elements – steel cubes meas- uring 50 cm a side, set at regular distances from each other, in a 32 metre long stretch – Cavenago obliges us to indulge in an optical gymkhana that does not allow us to interpret his work in any one direction. Crossing through all four exhibition rooms, Art Tires You constitutes their fulcrum while also underscoring their spatial dynamism, demolishing the obviousness of the architectural axes. Abandoning his previous monumental constructions set on wheels, Cavenago has now reduced the dimensions of his machines, but not their dynamic potential. The little spheres set on the upper sides of the individual structures enable the bench resting on the cubes to move, so that the spectator has a possibility to sit down in every room. Treating the idea of the static perception of the work of art ironically, Cavenago thus focuses attention on the observer’s responsibility and on the need for him to be physically and emotionally involved in the life of art.

Installation at Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato

Photo © Antonio Maniscalco