Fondazione Ermanno Casoli and Elica are pleased to announce that the winner of the Ermanno Casoli Prize –which has reached its 19th edition and is for the first time held at the ElicaMex headquarters in Querétaro, Mexico– is Mexican artist Jorge Satorre.
Satorre joins the world of Elica with the project Pelusa, which will be shown in an exhibition curated by Francesco Pedraglio and Marcello Smarrelli, that will open on December 7, 2021 at the ElicaMex plant in Querétaro. The work is the result of an articulated process that involved over 70 ElicaMex employees through drawing, engraving and sculpture. An exhibition of the works on paper produced for the Prize, along with the presentation of a book that gathers every step of the project’s progress, will be held on December 9, 2021 at LABOR art gallery in Mexico City.
Due to his interest in the dialectic that occurs between industrial and artistic...production, in this project Satorre reflects about the nature of traces left by workers on the products they help to create. Unlike works of art, objects made on production lines are standardized and follow strict criteria linked to functionality and design. The artist focused on the contrasts between personal expression and rules, instinct and quality assurance, subjective proposals and functional standards. The name of the project, “Pelusa” (‘fluff’ in English), underlines Satorre’s interest in the involuntary yet unavoidable personal residue present in any production process, a surplus that, as much as one tries to eradicate it, keeps occurring.
During his extended stays at the ElicaMex plant, Satorre utilized live drawing to document a series of moulds used to make kitchen hoods, namely matrixes that had become unusable due to deterioration and changing market needs. The artist, now captivated by this archive of precious, albeit useless objects, turned the drawings into a series of 19 engravings using scrap metal plates from the hoods’ matrixes.
The main topic of the project –objectivity and subjectivity in industrial production processes– was also the subject of a workshop the artist gave to ElicaMex workers, focused on the managerial pillars of the World Class Manufacturing (WCM) method that enable workers to propose improvements to the working environment and to the use and operation of machinery. The ‘suggestions’, which could also be made through drawings, inspired Satorre to run a live drawing class, thus showing employees the narrative potential of this technique.
Together with the 19 engravings, the artist also produced four large metal sculptures on which he placed, folded, a selection of ‘suggestions’ made by workers that were rejected. The sculptures were mimetically integrated into the interior of the factory and designed as continuations of the pre-existing stairs, protective fences and pillars. These structures became formal residues of technical devices that have permanently lost their functionality.
At the end of the process, which lasted over a year because of the pandemic, Satorre collected the results of the entire project in a book –a hybrid between a catalog and an artist’s book– that presents the 19 engravings alongside a photographic tour of ElicaMex plant, documenting the presence of the sculptures. The format of this unique archive imitates that of a traditional engravings book, thus suggesting a further key to interpreting the project, which can be identified in the personal and emotional relationship developed by the artist with the pieces he created, the factory space and the people who work there.
Entrada actualizada el el 07 dic de 2021
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