Ouverture

Ranging from textiles to engravings to installations, Petrucci seeks to combine scientific discoveries with magical and alchemical processes; in doing so, the artist questions the paradigms of modern rationality predominant in the contemporary world.

These works play with temporal vertigo we are exposed to when we observe extraterrestrial objects; their dating and provenance throw us into an alien dimension devoid of the everyday parameters of space-time. These materials, which precede us in antiquity and surpass us in longevity, create a dimension of temporal collapse, where Petrucci merges references to modern astrophysical sciences with pre-modern alchemical hermeticism, transmuting matter, such as meteorites and minerals, into materials for works of art.

The show opens with COMETÆ, 4 engravings reflecting on melancholia, in direct reference to Dürer’s engraving Melencolia I, and depicting comets in their dual role as messengers of catastrophe but also of renewal; real fragments of meteorites affix them, not coincidentally, beneath the fresco of Christ on the Cross.

Tessitura cosmica (Cosmic Weaving) is a tapestry that reproduces the complex geometric patterns of ferrous meteorites, the result of slow stratification over billions of years. Petrucci translates its structure through different textiles by recovering artisanal manufacturing techniques; the meteorite that originated the design is exhibited next to it.

Sol 2524 is a handmade carpet waved by Indian craftsmen, it is part of the Red Hope project, a series depicting Martian landscapes captured by the NASA probe Rover Curiosity. Here Petrucci reproduces the cavity excavated by the probe to research the Martian soil, and invites us to metaphorically be the first humans to step on the surface of the red planet. Sistema solare (Solar System), finally, is made of an ancient screw for transporting grain, on which numerous magnets represent the ellipsoidal whirling of the planets of the solar system. Ouverture‘s works take us into outer space to reflect on the relationship between the universe and human beings; as in the alchemical coincidence of opposites, Petrucci opens up reflections between the cosmos and humanity that reach from the infinitely distant to the intimately close.