COME AFFERRARE IL VENTO / LIKE CHASING AFTER THE WIND, (is) an installation of about 1,500 leaves in copper (2,600 in the 2025 version of the same work, presented at Museo Sant’Orsola in the exhibition The Rose That Grew From Concrete), suspended at various heights to create the impression of a gust of wind, of a flurry that is about to engulf whoever stands before it. The single elements are die-cuts, thus all of the same size, but each one assumes its own character thanks to manual bending and to oxidation. Like in a Calderian mobile, the leaves feel the presence of man and move, reacting to our appearance. As the ultimate symbol of the rhythm of the seasons, the life cycle of the leaves alludes to the eternal recurrence of the same, while the pointless – yet necessary – attempt to chase after the wind, to introduce a caesura in the regular passing of time, can be interpreted as self-overcoming, “always repeated anew (...) a game of the worlds that is always the same. The willing human being is always mixed into the necessity of this game of the worlds (1).
(1) Karl Löwith, Nietzsches Philosophiederewigen Wiederkehrdes Gleichen (1956), trans. Nietzsche’s Philosophy of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, University of California Press, 1997, pp. 156-157.
Marco Pierini, Terram Vertere, from the catalogue of the exhibition Federico Gori, Come afferrare il vento – Curated by Marco Pierini – ed. Gli Ori Editori Contemporanei, Pistoia 2015.
COME AFFERRARE IL VENTO – 2025, copper engraving, natural oxidation, line, iron, lead, environmental dimensions. Museo Sant'Orsola, Florence (2025). Photo credits: Claudio Ripalti (Courtesy Museo Sant'Orsola)
COME AFFERRARE IL VENTO – 2015, copper engraving, natural oxidation, line, iron, lead, environmental dimensions. Museo del Novecento e del Contemporaneo di Palazzo Fabroni, Pistoia (2015). Photo credits: Bärbel Reinhard
