Andrea Sala. The Phantom of the Anvil

Building hammers to cast iron. Drawing tools’ shapes for a precise purpose, strictly related to the physical effort involved in their use; heavy tools and flat sides to hit with maximum strength, small rounded heads to hit in repetition curved metallic bits still incandescent. Andrea Sala is imagining the history of the objects that began with the same tools used to construct these objects. “Any constructed form will never be beautiful if the tool used to forge it is not as beautiful”. Sala is fascinated by forms and the domino-like nature of the production chain where it’s almost impossible to guess the beginning: to closely observe a tool, built and modelled so that it can be used to forge something else again used to assemble another object and yet another, without possibly seeing the end of the process. […] The shape of hammers and anvils – place of ancient sounds, movements, stokes and bangs – it is the artisanal mould of countless objects, the origin of thousands of geometries.

Andrea Sala (Como, 1976) – has worked between Milan and Montreal – investigates the world of manufactured goods, the world of architecture and the true nature of materials in such a manner only a true sculptor could do. At Federica Schiavo Gallery with a new series of work and in bookstores with a new artist-book "Tachipirina", RAWRAW editions, curated by Davide Giannella, the Italian artist meticulously dissects the world of objects. His hands moulding details, splinters of reality or hidden corners that, in Sala’s story summarize in a small fragment the more extended tale of a scene. […] When looked at closely, explored as it develops, the construction process of an object is a tale on its own, made of parts to be joined, both enigmatic and self-evident, obvious like the history of our materialistic culture. Intimate, mechanical and handcrafted, Sala’s work comes to life from a gigantic, limitless canvas. Surrounded by the metallic sound of hand-made hammers.

(Extract from the text by Francesco Garutti for “ICON Design” - January 2017)

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