Emma Zanella

Exhibition catalogue, Museum Pagan

Vinicio Momoli's art shows that he does not possess an appropriate home in which to permanently reside and from which to receive an unchanged and incontrovertible definition. On the contrary, his art continually tears itself away from its roots, in an effort that leads it to investigate unexplored border territories. Momoli's works in fact become part of an absolutely autonomous and difficult to define sphere: not sculptures, not paintings, but objects that have something of painting, sculpture, of the everyday object and at the same time much more and different.
His works are also paintings, also sculptures, even recognizable objects. In "L'espace demeure" (installation 2002) exhibited at the Center Nacional de Fotografia of Torrelavega in Cantabria, Momoli connects objects which in everyday life define the space of home, living and conviviality. On the floor, a series of glasses of different shapes and sizes are arranged according to a precise and completely random rhythm; vertically the shapes of the table and the guests are proposed through essential and chromatic signs, in some cases recognisable, in others not, transparent, flat and three-dimensional at the same time.

Are we faced with a pictorial or sculptural work, objects, symbols, signs? Resorting to the installation definition helps little. Momoli's language moves in the name of a complex simplicity, capable of redefining and rethinking the relationship between space and work, form and sign, three-dimensionality and two-dimensionality, uniqueness and seriality. In relation to Momoli's works, minimalism has often been spoken of, meaning the simplification of forms, the essentiality of his interventions, the use of simple and industrial materials. I find that the reference to minimalist poetics alone is partial and, all things considered, reductive for Momoli.

Certainly in Momoli the shapes are minimalist, reduced to their primary, essential and incontrovertible structure. "Less is more" the famous statement by Ludwing Mies Van der Rohe can also be, with reasonable caution, a guide to reading the works of Momoli, who consciously stays away from the artificial neo-baroque and post-modern complexity that characterizes so much art of the last three decades. Momoli moves "on tiptoe" to discover shapes, compositions, figures, minimal materials of art (and life). His works, single or environmental, are arranged in space according to a prevailing (but not unique) principle of geometric simplification and almost serial repetition, determined by the desire to show, through the similarity of repeated forms, the particularity of each individual object.
By drawing attention to details of shape, size, material, finish, structure, number and spatial position, Momoli's works allow us to shatter that state of perceptive flattening in which we are often forced, more or less unconsciously, to live. Made to be as physically specific as possible, Momoli's pictorial objects increase in the viewer a keener awareness of one's physical dimensions and the dependence of perceptions on one's position and movement.

Observing Momoli's works you can enjoy the subtle effects of light and color produced by the use of materials such as colored plexiglass, rubber, plastic, metals, rubber, artificial light, light bulbs, neon and more. But any emotion that the spectator may have in front of one of his works is, so to speak, a problem that concerns only him and not his work. Which does not stage a stylistic representation for the observer but rather presents itself in its objectivity and essentiality. In this desire not to be showy, in the modulation and dissemination of simple chromatic and three-dimensional geometric shapes, Momoli's art is in the wake of minimalism. Yet, as I said, this is not enough. Compared to the extreme rigor of historical minimalism, Momoli introduces a different take on space which is redefined mainly through the use of color and light, always strong, intense and shouty. Color reigns supreme in Momoli's works, particularly in her latest projects, a predominantly primary colour, always flat and almost digital, yet intense and joyful in its physicality. Precisely this energetic and playful use of chromaticism which characterizes the large sign forms superimposed and modulated in a new and unprecedented compositional complexity, distinguishes Momoli's works, giving them the ability to open new paths not yet investigated.

Emma Zanella
Exhibition catalogue, Museum Pagani,
Castellanza (Varese) 2006