GIULIO CIAVOIELLO

Short journey between restlessness and form

Often the relationship with the works starts from photographic reproductions, not only mine, but that of almost all people who deal with art.
I don't know about others, for me this is not negative, it is just an inevitable way of experiencing art because it is part of a general, necessary relationship with things, which must be considered for all the possibilities it offers, of risk, of distortion, stimulus, real knowledge. I had met the person of Vinicio Momoii, in a previous catalogue, in the photographic documentation that had come to me by correspondence: these were occasions that also determined the desire to get closer to what he does. We arranged a meeting to which I arrived by train. Shortly before it happened there was the curiosity to approach someone and their things differently, afterwards there was a short-lived apprehension. The first meetings, those that are not fortuitous, can be confusing, due to an objective misunderstanding of coordinates or due to internal agitation in those who experience them. For this second reason, a small misunderstanding arose during the meeting between Momoii and me, which was fortunately resolved within a few minutes. We met, both of us weren't really casual, only that he manifested this state more evidently while I concealed it, not succeeding very well. The characters are different. Behaviors are assumed that are controllable up to a certain point.
Together we continued in the car, chatting along the way, to go to his home-studio, a beautiful low building with a garden, on one floor, where they found his works, those known through photos and others. Here and elsewhere, within the same day, I realized some things.

Some works can be arranged and observed flat.
The plane is not always that of the painting, of the quadrangular shape to be fixed in balance on the wall. They lend themselves to being placed on the ground, to being placed against the wall in an irregular manner, distanced from it, diagonally. The surface expresses the visual characteristics of the materials themselves, the grain for wood, a certain shine for metal, the opacity, the absorption of light for mortar.
The artist, in addition to combining materials, practices openings and bulges, creates expressive possibilities for light, which refracts or sinks into the darkness. They are surface disturbances that sometimes manifest themselves with a poor, primary design. There are also objects which represent archetypal forms of living, of residing in the home. Momoli designs sculptures, whose creation he carefully follows, which do not differ greatly from the shape of the everyday object. It's not so much about design, it's still art, which draws heavily from life. The artisanal, slow, accurate work of the blacksmith develops according to the artist's directives.

Then we find an unlikely, high bed, the top of which is slightly curved, together with a pillow, equally curved but in the opposite direction. The bed that welcomes man for rest becomes a poetic form, an auratic object to be contemplated. The same happens for the table, the chair. They are important objects for moments and actions of human life. If you think at the table, which is also a table, a convivial hub, around which we meet, celebrate, discuss and taste food and drinks. Speaking of meeting and tasting, afterwards, Momoli, him and his wife, who kindly accompanied us, we went around some enchanting countryside and to a small village, with the idea of ending the day around a table. We walked among shapes, colors and scents, which those who live in the city ignore and forget. Unfortunately, in front of them I am often distracted and superficial. Momoli did nothing but point them out to me. Above all he showed me the lines of the cultivated land, the design of the vineyards, the structures put in place by the peasant work. Here the origin of Momoli's work became clearer to me. The real, the disposition, mostly unaware of the forms produced by man, the organization of nature, such as image, smell, sound and the fusions between these areas, is felt by Momoli in all his aesthetic values. Hearing this spectacle agitates them, it disturbs and transforms, it does not remain still in amazement and becomes active intervention, manipulation, construction.

This is why Momoli works with materials natural, because they were used by man to build, to change the landscape. Materials, shapes, objects are considered, chosen, recalled for their anthropological meaning. They themselves contain a ritual value, linked to aspects of work, rest, free time. The artist adds ritual to ritual, to the rites of life he adds, through dislocations and other creations, the rite of art.

Gulio Ciavoliello - "Short journey between restlessness and form"
Exhibition catalogue, UNESCO Palace Espace "Picasso"
Paris 1991