Nastro trasportatore, 1996, Umberto Cavenago

Nastro trasportatore, 1996

Stainless steel, PVC belt and electric motors
29 × 18,5 × 780 cm

3 elements 253,3 x 18,5 x 29,0 cm each

An exhibition space in two rooms

Milan, 1996
Raffaella Cortese Gallery,
one exhibition space in two rooms.

The space
The two rooms, places of residence or of standing still, bounded from one another by the dividing wall, overlook the corridor with which they make up the entire exhibition space of the Gallery.

The work
The movement connects the two rooms. It is formalized with a system for crossing, a conveyor belt operating with electromechanical movement, oriented to a compass, in the east-west direction. The conveyor creates a direct passage from one room to another, through a small and localized demolition of the partition wall.

Description
Nastro trasportatore is built with three identical elements juxtaposed to form a single device. Each element is a continuous belt, made of blue PVC, ring-shaped, mounted on two rollers at the ends, one of which is electromechanical.
The motors of the three elements produce a sound that spreads into the two different spaces.
The different timbre is influenced by the different materials of the rooms, but the sound propagated uniforms the space, lasts during operation and is extinguished only by disconnection from the mains.

The relationship with the space
The opening through the dividing wall, of a breach between the two rooms, is intended to allow a passage but at the same time demolishes the traditional theories of the exhibition.
Like a means of production, the plant moves but is stuck in a relationship of dependence with architecture: the electrical connection.
The work in two spaces has latent productive attitudes, would allow the passage of loose materials and objects perhaps to be assembled, but nothing is loaded.
The conveyor belt is an icon of productive work, evoking the assembly line of the 20th century, which with its sliding forced man to repetitive and mechanical movements.
In this installation, the functional potential is deactivated by its location, geographical orientation, colour and size.

Sabina Spada, Umberto Cavenago. Galleria Cortese, «Tema Celeste», nn. 59-60, Milano 1997

Umberto Cavenago’s installation for this exhibition comprises a blue conveyor belt in constant movement that runs throughout the gallery’s space, passing from one room to the other through a breach in the wall. This movement, a recurring theme in this artist’s works, generates communications between the two environments, inviting the spectator to move from one to the other, so as to enjoy the work to the full. In this way, the individual and the exhibition space are both expected to become active parts of the work, interacting with it and becoming elements essential to its existence.

Made using nothing but industrial materials and technologies, this work was designed in strict compliance with the procedures used to produce technological items. Nevertheless, it has been deprived of every function and is a long way away from being the symbol of alienating labour that a superficial analysis might lead to believe it to be: taken out of the context of utility it occupied in modern times and positioned along the axis of the sun’s trajectory, from east to west, the belt perpetuates its cyclic movement without transporting anything at all. This makes it the object of a purely aesthetic use, the vehicle of potential ponderings about the current state of art and of sculpture, no longer open to belated interpretation as a static object of contemplation. Its incessant motion also ensures that the spatial dynamic is immediately related to the temporal dynamic: the moving belt – a sort of mechanical sand-glass – accompanies the spectator in the passage of time, regulated and marked by electricity, the modern source of energy that flanks the sun, without replacing it completely, in regulating the human being’s vital rhythms.