Nicola Martini

“Displacements. The interval perceived by the senses is transposed onto another curve; the quantitative gap remains the same, but the scale changes. Matter seeps into matter itself. This process is the unfolding of a ritual to which I must submit in order to find my place among matter’s frictions and interstices. Osmosis: theorizing the porosity of all established shapes, with something always emerging from resonant space. Matter added, displaced or pre-existing in space; nothing is annihilated. The only constant: pores can never be sealed; they merely change scale, i.e., their system of reference to otherness. Nothing is completely insulated from the outside, or from its own inside. The transmigration of matter towards its surroundings is both absolute and absolutely dependent, including on itself. Ceaseless involutions and envelopments: there is no hierarchy; everything is put on the same conceptual plane, flattened out, each fine stratum is stripped away from its immediate neighbor.”
(Nicola Martini)

Matter and its metamorphoses are both the starting and end point of Nicola Martini’s entire artistic endeavor. There is nothing haphazard about his use of the word “process” since, beyond the sculptures and installations he creates, his underlying concern is with the process whereby creation is enacted. Martini displays physical changes of state, be they
inherent to the material used (plastic, resins, grease, synthetic fibers, copper, cement, etc.) or brought about by interactions between different materials.

These processes result in works whose aim is to engage the spectator with the exhibition’s space, which the artist puts to ever-changing use: at times, he expands the space by adding installations, at others, the modifications are esthetically minimal.

By re-interpreting certain hallmarks of Arte Povera, Process Art and, even more, the Anti-Form movement, Martini gives in to the act of creation, the conclusion of which simply bears witness to the process undertaken.

Thus, the chemical and entropic properties of the materials used call into question the very role of the artist and the paternity of the artwork, which in the case of Martini undergoes modifications and transformations over time, subsisting beyond, and often dispensing with, the artist’s presence.

Vincenzo de Bellis

*concrete, polypropylene fiber, iron, copper, fat, aluminium, cyclododecanol, quartz electric resistances, cellophane, function generator, noise, generator, Terfenol, amplifier, electric wires.
Detail of the installation at the Brown Project Space, Milan, 2009.