Some sand and water, two primal, smooth and plastic elements with which Gabriele Pezzini summed up a philosophy of simplicity with a performance which captivated and surprised the audience at Galerie Gutharc on Tuesday 26th October. With his method for making meteorites, Pezzini has most certainly found the “thing”: the thing to play with children on the beach this summer making the simple prefabricated sandcastle out-of-date, and especially the thing to proudly accept the supervision of huge projects (boat, helicopter,…) with the same practical clarity that he gives to pour a little water onto sand to update such compact and fleeting objects of design… Let’s take a look at the method:

1/ Build up a small mound of very dry sand in front of you.

 

2/ Pour several drops of water carefully onto the top of this mound.

 

3/ Using your finger form a small crater in the top and very lightly pat the moistened sand as if building a small chimney

 

4/ Pour a few more drops into the crater, pat again. Repeat the process two or three times until your finger fits in completely.

 

5/ Lastly block the crater up with dry sand, then one last time pour a little water onto it to bind it together.


 

6/ Very gently remove the dry sand surrounding the mound, like an archaeologist on the verge of unveiling his discovery. Little by little a sort of sculpture appears. How has this fragile concretion formed? The water has seeped into the sand according to gravity whilst the sand has tried to absorb it. As a result of the interaction between these two conglomerated forces a shape has been formed, a sphere composed of several layers of agglomerated sand…

 

“In design where experiment always has to be done with actual matter and objects, prospective reflections can be defended with meta-projects, that is projects which have the single function of representing thinking in their concepts and abstraction, without being veritable products and in addition, without needing to be so, and very luckily as it would be difficult if not to have free thinking. Meta-projects, even if indispensable, remain very different to projects of a more concrete nature as certain either artisanal or industrial components necessary to a project or a process, are not present.” Gabriele Pezzini

“METEORITE, looking far watching closely, a reflection by Gabriele Pezzini”

Editions Archibooks

Price 12 euros

www.bookstorming.com

www.gabriele-pezzini.com