Pierre Restany
"A sob of pleasure in a Gregorian chant"
Vinicio Momoli's minimalism is part of a long history of rational philosophy that has informed the spirit of geometry common to all the constructivist or "constructed" avant-gardes that have followed one another since the First World War. Minimalism therefore fits into this geometric line, distancing itself from it in the face of rigor imperatives. Momoli is at the same time the representative of a general state of mind and the marginal of a tangential research. Momoli is minimalist in his way of approaching the material in his collision between sculpture and painting.
But he remains the manufacturer of original and specific objects. His iron and wood installations represent the extreme dimension of a "compensated rigor" that is unique to him. These installations are large objects that appear autonomously halfway between the object
of art and everyday objects.
It could be tables, consoles or a decorative stand. Yet, a second moment of gaze neutralizes the functional aspect of the object to the advantage of its "structural mystery". Take for example the case of a "table if you will". This is an iron assembly
and wooden measuring 220 cm x 80 cm. The object rests on eight angular feet, the tip of which is turned towards the ground. The two feet are double, which brings the number of contact points with the ground to 12 (6 x 2). An extension is added to the first structural element whose surface forms a bulge in relation to the level of the entire object. This extension rests on the ground by means of four simple linear stems. The mere fact of enumerating the number of feet or contact points that the installation presents in relation to the ground already makes us forget its pseudo-functional character
of its appearance. The problems we ask ourselves are problems where modular calculation intervenes as a guarantor of a linguistic system. This system tends to make the overall structure, its load-bearing areas and its tension areas, plausible to us.
Rational discourse leads to the definition of an object that could have been functional but which turns out to be perfectly autonomous and useless from the point of view of daily use. It is at the precise moment in which this "shock" of revelation is triggered that Momoli's objects take on all their meaning, an unexpected and irresistible, liberating poetry. You have to have felt this impact to appreciate its immense liberating relief. It is in the space of a sigh that the real freedom of these objective propositions is discovered. They are in effect free objects, the product of the sudden poetic impetus of a rational idea.
This element of surprise in the perspective of a routine discourse creates the determining poetic factor. It's a bit like a sob of pleasure in a Gregorian chant. Momoli's installations constitute the entire key to his language. They allow us to see from another point of view
given the entire series of relief compositions and modular structures.
They give his works an imperceptible boost of random humanism.
Something irreparable happened that altered the geometric spirit of the discussion. And it is then that the adventure of a new meaning begins and all the happiness of gambling is permitted.
Pierre Restany
"A sob of pleasure in a Gregorian chant"
Exhibition catalogue,
Gallery Diecidue, Milano - 1994
Gallery Uovo di Struzzo, Torino - 1994