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Akelo
FUNZIONI D'ONDA # Ψ 018-P03, 2018
Steel, finish with transparent powder coating, metallic / opalescent, plexiglass base
23 x 31 in
58.4 x 78.7 cm
58.4 x 78.7 cm
Copyright The Artist
€10000 / €10200 (inc. tax)
'The wave function that describes quantum processes is a symbol: a symbol of real correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm to which we belong'. Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Nobel Prize...
"The wave function that describes quantum processes is a symbol: a symbol of real correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm to which we belong".
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Nobel Prize in Physics 1945
The aesthetic and philosophical research of Andrea Cagnetti - Akelo starts from very far away, giving life to an articulated path, supported by studies in the most disparate fields, broading from vitalism to restlessness, through past, present and future. From a very young age, he focusses on art, Greek-Latin literature and alchemical texts, and above all on ancient technologies concerning ceramics, medicine and the processing of glass stones and fabrics and, in particular, metallurgy. How, moreover, his creations testify: from precious jewels made with Etruscan goldsmithing techniques and composed of thousands of infinitesimal pieces, to steel sculptures, which now praise classicism, now to the most daring abstraction. Extremely different works - confirming an eclecticism and a breadth of vision that are rare on the contemporary art scene - but permeated by a single goal: the search for Beauty and Harmony. A research that, in recent times, Akelo has been leading towards Science and that has been allowing him to enter a new phase of his production.
SCIENCE AND ART TOWARDS NEW DIMENSIONS
It was thanks to Albert Einstein that science overcame the conception of a cosmos with three spatial dimensions, introducing time. Today some avant-garde studies are testing the hypothesis of the existence of additional dimensions, beyond any imagination. Even modern and contemporary art has been seduced by similar cognitive and aesthetic paths, giving important and multifaceted, both formal - meaning the overcoming of the limits inherent in the expressive modes of painting, the development of new linguistic codes -, both substantial, with the search for another dimension able to go beyond the real, the appearance, the physicality of things, to grasp its depth, its absolute meaning. A research that has involved many avant-garde currents from the twentieth century to today. Akelo was particularly interested in Spatialism and Kinetic Art, focusing in the first case on Lucio Fontana and Enrico Castellani, united by the intent to "abandon the plan" and "continue in space", thus seizing the opportunity to grasp the third dimension also in the artistic sphere. While the first makes cuts (Attese, Spatial Concepts), physically opening tears, breccias, fissures, net, regular, impulsive and instinctive, but with an almost surgical precision on the surface, thus violating the sacredness of the canvas, the second develops wisely and in an original way the technique of extroflexion (or "shaped canvas"), or a spatial expansion towards the outside of the canvas (mostly monochromatic) through ad hoc technical devices and specific materials. And then the Kinetic Art which for Akelo completes two further steps: it introduces, on the one hand, the concept of movement inside the work, freeing the creations from the frame or from the pedestal and on the other, allows a more complete involvement - not only frontal or emotional, but also perceptive and psychological - of the viewer in artistic creation. In this way the classic subject-object cognitive relationship is eliminated, favoring the shifting of the point of view, no longer fixed and decided a priori by the artist, but wanted and sought by the viewer.
A HORIZON OF INFINITE POSSIBILITIES
As anticipated, on the same wave - the search for another dimension - are Akelo's most recent studies and experiments inspired by quantum mechanics. A dimension, that of the infinitely small, where matter is pure energy, where everything is possible. This is where the "wave function" comes into play. The Greek letter Psi - Ψ is the description of the state of a quantum system (for example, the orbital of an electron) in all its components. It is a "complex" function, consisting of "real" numbers and "imaginary" numbers (useful in mathematics, but which do not represent real things), which expresses a set of coexisting and overlapping conditions in the so-called "probability space" (" Hilbert space "). In practice, the wave function does not measure the real state of a particle in a given instant, but only the "probability" that that electron is in that state at that moment. The exact status will be determined only at the time of measurement, when the electron "collapses" into a single state. As if to say that, in a certain sense, with their measuring instruments, scientists intervene in the creation of the reality they are studying.
THE "CREATOR" LOOK
A similar intervention is that of the artist who, throwing his gaze into this coagulation of infinite probabilities, "crystallizes" some of them, transforming them into tangible matter. This is the landing of Akelo's new collection, Ψ F U N Z I O N I D' O N D A (Wave Functions). "Starting from the premise of the analogy between quantum mechanics and these works of art, they present themselves as a quantum system - therefore, by definition, not determined in all its details to a priori -, in which the artist takes the place of the observer scientist, that is, the one who, by carrying out the experiment, precipitates the quantum system in a defined state", says Marcello Fanti, Associate Professor at the Physics Department of the University of Milan and at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics. "The analogy subsists also because, the same quantum system, observed with different experiments, could fall into different defined states. Each experiment chooses what to measure and 'forces' the system. Consequently, it is not the experiment that decides what result have from the measure, but the final measure depends both on the system under examination, and on how the experiment is done".
THE COMPLICITY OF LIGHT
In this way, the artist promotes the visualization of invisible energetic entities of quantum mechanics, different from the macroscopic ones of visible nature. And he does so with the complicity of light, which, in Akelo's avant-garde works, filters through the slits of the panels, elaborates evocative textures, where space-time interacts in the void, without beginnings or endings, composes continuously changing symmetries, draws orbitals, reliefs, shaded areas and chiaroscuro that, after giving reasons for their existence, dissolve in their reciprocal energetic and vital relationship. Not by chance, Akelo almost always chooses a metallic, sparkling, reflective surface, capable of emphasizing the impelling presence of energy waves, creating sense chasms, transcendental abysses, playing with the optical effects that the numerous concavities and convexity of the work cause the light to bounce in different shades in the space. The candid, simple and at the same time exciting discovery of an art of innate elegance, pure, without barriers, permeated by infinite metamorphic possibilities. The role of a visionary artist like Akelo does not end here. Thus conceived, his creations also offer those who contemplate them the opportunity to do it from a new, global, spinning, dynamic perspective, entering the creation itself and becoming a participant of the creative process. Here we see a series of luminous, fluid and fluctuating works that do not simply aim at breaking and / or dilating the canvas, overcoming the two-dimensionality and even the three-dimensionality of the work of art. They do not simply intuit the ultimate essence of reality, but penetrate it, favoring a sort of full immersion in the depths of the other dimension, which is finally revealed.
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Nobel Prize in Physics 1945
The aesthetic and philosophical research of Andrea Cagnetti - Akelo starts from very far away, giving life to an articulated path, supported by studies in the most disparate fields, broading from vitalism to restlessness, through past, present and future. From a very young age, he focusses on art, Greek-Latin literature and alchemical texts, and above all on ancient technologies concerning ceramics, medicine and the processing of glass stones and fabrics and, in particular, metallurgy. How, moreover, his creations testify: from precious jewels made with Etruscan goldsmithing techniques and composed of thousands of infinitesimal pieces, to steel sculptures, which now praise classicism, now to the most daring abstraction. Extremely different works - confirming an eclecticism and a breadth of vision that are rare on the contemporary art scene - but permeated by a single goal: the search for Beauty and Harmony. A research that, in recent times, Akelo has been leading towards Science and that has been allowing him to enter a new phase of his production.
SCIENCE AND ART TOWARDS NEW DIMENSIONS
It was thanks to Albert Einstein that science overcame the conception of a cosmos with three spatial dimensions, introducing time. Today some avant-garde studies are testing the hypothesis of the existence of additional dimensions, beyond any imagination. Even modern and contemporary art has been seduced by similar cognitive and aesthetic paths, giving important and multifaceted, both formal - meaning the overcoming of the limits inherent in the expressive modes of painting, the development of new linguistic codes -, both substantial, with the search for another dimension able to go beyond the real, the appearance, the physicality of things, to grasp its depth, its absolute meaning. A research that has involved many avant-garde currents from the twentieth century to today. Akelo was particularly interested in Spatialism and Kinetic Art, focusing in the first case on Lucio Fontana and Enrico Castellani, united by the intent to "abandon the plan" and "continue in space", thus seizing the opportunity to grasp the third dimension also in the artistic sphere. While the first makes cuts (Attese, Spatial Concepts), physically opening tears, breccias, fissures, net, regular, impulsive and instinctive, but with an almost surgical precision on the surface, thus violating the sacredness of the canvas, the second develops wisely and in an original way the technique of extroflexion (or "shaped canvas"), or a spatial expansion towards the outside of the canvas (mostly monochromatic) through ad hoc technical devices and specific materials. And then the Kinetic Art which for Akelo completes two further steps: it introduces, on the one hand, the concept of movement inside the work, freeing the creations from the frame or from the pedestal and on the other, allows a more complete involvement - not only frontal or emotional, but also perceptive and psychological - of the viewer in artistic creation. In this way the classic subject-object cognitive relationship is eliminated, favoring the shifting of the point of view, no longer fixed and decided a priori by the artist, but wanted and sought by the viewer.
A HORIZON OF INFINITE POSSIBILITIES
As anticipated, on the same wave - the search for another dimension - are Akelo's most recent studies and experiments inspired by quantum mechanics. A dimension, that of the infinitely small, where matter is pure energy, where everything is possible. This is where the "wave function" comes into play. The Greek letter Psi - Ψ is the description of the state of a quantum system (for example, the orbital of an electron) in all its components. It is a "complex" function, consisting of "real" numbers and "imaginary" numbers (useful in mathematics, but which do not represent real things), which expresses a set of coexisting and overlapping conditions in the so-called "probability space" (" Hilbert space "). In practice, the wave function does not measure the real state of a particle in a given instant, but only the "probability" that that electron is in that state at that moment. The exact status will be determined only at the time of measurement, when the electron "collapses" into a single state. As if to say that, in a certain sense, with their measuring instruments, scientists intervene in the creation of the reality they are studying.
THE "CREATOR" LOOK
A similar intervention is that of the artist who, throwing his gaze into this coagulation of infinite probabilities, "crystallizes" some of them, transforming them into tangible matter. This is the landing of Akelo's new collection, Ψ F U N Z I O N I D' O N D A (Wave Functions). "Starting from the premise of the analogy between quantum mechanics and these works of art, they present themselves as a quantum system - therefore, by definition, not determined in all its details to a priori -, in which the artist takes the place of the observer scientist, that is, the one who, by carrying out the experiment, precipitates the quantum system in a defined state", says Marcello Fanti, Associate Professor at the Physics Department of the University of Milan and at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics. "The analogy subsists also because, the same quantum system, observed with different experiments, could fall into different defined states. Each experiment chooses what to measure and 'forces' the system. Consequently, it is not the experiment that decides what result have from the measure, but the final measure depends both on the system under examination, and on how the experiment is done".
THE COMPLICITY OF LIGHT
In this way, the artist promotes the visualization of invisible energetic entities of quantum mechanics, different from the macroscopic ones of visible nature. And he does so with the complicity of light, which, in Akelo's avant-garde works, filters through the slits of the panels, elaborates evocative textures, where space-time interacts in the void, without beginnings or endings, composes continuously changing symmetries, draws orbitals, reliefs, shaded areas and chiaroscuro that, after giving reasons for their existence, dissolve in their reciprocal energetic and vital relationship. Not by chance, Akelo almost always chooses a metallic, sparkling, reflective surface, capable of emphasizing the impelling presence of energy waves, creating sense chasms, transcendental abysses, playing with the optical effects that the numerous concavities and convexity of the work cause the light to bounce in different shades in the space. The candid, simple and at the same time exciting discovery of an art of innate elegance, pure, without barriers, permeated by infinite metamorphic possibilities. The role of a visionary artist like Akelo does not end here. Thus conceived, his creations also offer those who contemplate them the opportunity to do it from a new, global, spinning, dynamic perspective, entering the creation itself and becoming a participant of the creative process. Here we see a series of luminous, fluid and fluctuating works that do not simply aim at breaking and / or dilating the canvas, overcoming the two-dimensionality and even the three-dimensionality of the work of art. They do not simply intuit the ultimate essence of reality, but penetrate it, favoring a sort of full immersion in the depths of the other dimension, which is finally revealed.
Exhibitions
2020 - San Valentino Arte PALAZZO DI PRIMAVERA Terni, Italy (February 2020)2019 - Artrooms - International contemporary art fair for independent artist (Guest Artist) The Church Palace HotelRome, Italy (March 2019)
2018 - Gods, Palazzo Naiadi, The Dedica Anthology HotelsRome, Italy (19 April - 12 June 2018) Artrooms - International contemporary art fair for independent artist (Guest Artist)The Church Palace Hotel, Rome, Italy (March 2018)
2017 - Akelo, Anima MundiPalazzo Alemanni - Museo Geologico e delle Frane, Bagnoregio, Italy (15 July 2017 - 31 January 2018) Past Is Present: Revival Jewelry Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA - U.S.A. (14 February 2017 - 19 August 2018) Akelo - Materia Nova III Spazio Pensilina, Viterbo, Italy (28 January - 28 February 2017)
2016 - Dall'argento al Ferro, Accademia d'Ungheria in Roma, Rome, Italy (12 September - 16 October 2016) Anima Mundi, Museo ArcheologicoTerni, Italy (15 July - 3 September 2016)
2015 - Jewelry: From Pearls to Platinum to PlasticNewark MuseumNewark, NJ – U.S.A. (27 June 2015 - Ongoing)
2014 - Energia per l'ArteCofely - GDF SuezRome, Italy (June 2014) Ante Materiam, Museo Diocesano, Gubbio, Italy (2 May - 29 June 2014)
2013 - Akelo - Andrea Cagnetti. Le scultureOfficinae d'arte #2, Terni, Italy (December 2013) Forme umane e cosmo aureo, Museo Civico Rocca FleaGualdo Tadino, Italy (4 October - 24 November 2013) Materia Nova II. Sculture di AkeloProgettArte3D - Caffeina Cultura, Sala TurchettiViterbo, Italy (23 June - 7 July 2013)
2012 - Materia Nova, Galerie Ludwig Trossaert, Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium (18 May - 6 June 2012) Collecting for a New Century: Recent AcquisitionMuseum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO - U.S.A (28 January - 13 May 2012)
2011 - Akelo's Treasures. An Exhibition Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of a Roman Master Goldsmith, Bentley & Skinner (Bond Street Jewellers) Ltd, London, UK (November 2011)
2010 - Golden Treasures by Akelo, Museum of the Gemological Institute of America, Carlsbad, CA - U.S.A. (7 October 2010 - 11 March 2011) The Voyage of a Contemporary Italian Goldsmith in the Classical World: Golden Treasures by Akelo, Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO - U.S.A. (5 June - 26 September 2010)
2009 - In Its Time: Materials and Techniques Throughout Jewelry History, Aaron Faber Gallery, New York, NY - U.S.A. (October 2009)
2008 - Gioiello Italiano Contemporaneo, Milan, Castello Sforzesco - Room of the Treasury Vicenza, Palazzo Valmarana Braga Berlin, Kunstgewerbe museum Turin, Museo di Arti Decorative, Pietro Accorsi (January 2008 - January 2009)
2007 - Museo F. Rittatore Vonwiller, Farnese, Italy (August 2007)
2006 - Gold Expressions, The language of Italian design, World Gold Council - Fiera Vicenza Italy, Around the world (December 2006 - December 2007) Museo Archeologico dell'Agro Falisco, Civita Castellana, Italy (September 2006)
2005 - Galleria "REM" - Gemeente OnderbankenJabeek, Holland (August 2005) Akelo: risplende l'oro degli Etruschi, Vicenzaoro2 - Fiera di Vicenza, Vicenza, Italy (June 2005)
2003 - Scambio d'arte - Een uitwisseling van kuns Onderbanken, Holland (August 2003)
2000 - Arte Viva Chiostro di San MarcoTarquinia, Italy (June 2000) Expo Universale 2000, Italian Pavillon, Hannover, Germany (1 June - 31 October 2000)