ART-PRESENTATION: Valentina Ornaghi & Claudio Prestinari-Toccante

Some of the most noteworthy representatives of a young generation of Italian artists, Valentina Ornaghi and Claudio Prestinari begun to work together in 2009. Their practice is centered on the dualities between thinking and acting, focusing particular attention to spontaneous and unpredictable intuitions. Ornaghi and Prestinari are interested in investigating the intimacy of domestic objects: it is under this premise that they transform everyday objects like a such as a “moka” espresso maker (Mattino, 2016) or a beer bottle (Chapeau, 2016) into alabaster sculptures, thus elevating familiar objects to a higher and new dimension.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galeria Continua Archive

Valentina Ornaghi and Claudio Prestinari’s in their solo ehibition “Toccante” present a group of previously unseen works, realised especially for this occasion, that reflect on the theme of “meeting”.  The multidisciplinary approach that Ornaghi & Prestinari perfected during their training as well as their interest for design, architecture and art history have become part of their research. The artists’ work explores the domestic, fragile and intimate dimension of things. Ornaghi & Prestinari’s practice moves between concept and action with a particular attention to the materials and their manipulation. Delicacy, care, time, lightness and irony are the recurring themes of their works. The works that Ornaghi & Prestinari have conceived for this exhibition are united by the theme of meeting and a relationship with the other. A meeting that presupposes the desire to approach and make contact, as shown in “Rintocco”, where the crystal chalices positioned on a shelf throughout the day get closer together until they touch, similarly in “Sfiorare”, the diptych in which two canvases tilt so much towards each other that they touch in a corner. “The Latin etymology of the word ‘to think’ (pensare) means ‘to weigh’ (pesare). Thought weighs on us and can become heavy just like the relationship between sensory touch and what “touches” us emotionally”. The work “Ritrovarsi” is large glazed ceramic plates that the artists have realised for the exhibition bring us back to the convivial aspect of sharing the table and food together. Each plate, seemingly made up of fragments of different origins, is restored to its original shape after some of its shards have been enamelled. A process that the artists have put in place and which implies the desire to rediscover a design already inherent in the plate; a design that is only revealed with its rupture, underlining how its initial unity was not the end but the beginning of a journey. The exhibition ends with: “Appendimarmi”, two scraps of marble as leftover cuttings, hung on the wall on a metal support; the silent and immobile landscape of a photograph in “Sentimento” and “Vuoti”, the drawing of three vases obtained in negative by painting the space around the profiles of the shapes.

Photo: Valentina Ornaghi & Claudio Prestinari, Uscire dal guscio (detail), 2020, Verde Alpi marble, tin, pvc, 14 x 282 x 110 cm / 5,51 x 111,0 x 43,31, Photo: Claudio Corfone, © Valentina Ornaghi & Claudio Prestinari, Courtesy: the artists and GALLERIA CONTINUA

Info: Galleria Continua, The St. Regis Rome, Via Vittorio E. Orlando 3, Rome, Duration: 19/2-17/4/2202, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00 by appointment only (book here), www.galleriacontinua.com