Centrifugo, 2020, Umberto Cavenago

Centrifugo, 2020

CorTen Steel
400 × 400 × 60 cm

A sculpture on curve

Made of Cor-Ten steel, Centrifugo is almost a parallelepiped, empty inside, uneven in its shape and broken down longitudinally to be able to bend 30° inside the hairpin. A deconstructed volume on four large wheels, two of which, those inside the curve, are solid to the ground and the other two, the outer ones, almost lifted off the ground due to the inclination.
Unlike the canonical position "on the public square and erect", the sculpture of Cavenago is inclined and on a hairpin bend.
Unlike the monument on pedestal where the public is around, its placement along a road allows the vision only while moving , better if aboard a vehicle on the way to Peccioli. The shape of the work, although characterized by minimal essentiality and while remaining firmly anchored to an abstract dimension, unequivocally refers to cycling racing, evoking with its position and placement the figure of the runner bent into a curve. The title is a reference to the centrifugal force that comes into play when a vehicle speeds through a curve.

The title

The title is a reference to the centrifugal force that comes into play at the moment a vehicle speeds through a bend.
A physical factor that even a runner has to take into account: the cyclist bends inwards on a bend to compensate for the outward thrust.
Centrifugo's inclination creates the relationship that becomes visually effective and surprising when one observes the work at the moment when the passage of the runners on that precise section of the route takes place.
And it is at that point that Centrifugo ideally enters the race in that moment when his position coincides with that of the cyclists who are passing parallel to him.

Antonella Soldaini, 2022

The movement

For Cavenago, movement has been one of the subjects that have fascinated him most since the beginning of his activity.
Starting from the late 1980s, the artist has created a series of sculptures that recall vehicles, means of transport or parts of them: Motocicletta (1988), Camion (1988), Voglia di treno (1988), Sottiletta (1989), C-Duu (2011), Ringway (2015) stand out for the presence of wheels that become a recurring topos in his work.
It dates back to 2014: L'alcova d'acciaio (2014), which, on the one hand, refers in its title to the novel of the same name by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and to the Futurists' myth of the machine and progress, but on the other hand, it exhausts their historical interventionism by reinterpreting it in an anti-war key. The steel alcove, installed in a forest in the Langhe, is transformed from a war machine, as Marinetti's was during the Great War, into an environment exorcised from military ambitions that, hidden by nature, offers refuge and shelter.
Associated with the idea of speed and dynamism and thus with the concept of dynamism and transformation, are also a series of works that are measured and acquire meaning when placed in relation to the space in which they are inserted. Trave (1990), Telescopico (1991), L'Arte stanca (1993) and Primo piano (2013) consist of mobile elements that can be adapted according to their size and the conformation of the place in which they are installed, which in turn changes due to their presence.
For the execution of his works, the artist has always considered the work process as a fundamental part of his way of proceeding.
All of his productions are realised starting from a detailed design phase that develops into the productions of the parts of the work in the environments of the production area. Also in the case of Centrifugo Cavenago has collaborated with a technical staff of engineers and carpentry technicians.
The final result, thanks to the particular opportunity offered by the Peccioli commission, is the ideal development of what has been realised so far and opens up new possibilities for investigation and experimentation within his creative language.

Antonella Soldaini, 2022