Exhibition at Mercati di Traiano by Ugo Rondinone

Under the portico of the Mercati di Traiano, Ugo Rondinone presented for the first time in Italy “Notti d’Argento”: a group of 5 castings of thousand-year old olive trees, realised in aluminium and coated with white enamel. The artist intended to pay homage to his family’s native region, immigrated to Switzerland from Matera, in the Italian region of Basilicata. Therefore, he conceived the idea of a monument recalling a very ancient time, a sort of petrified forest similar to the prehistoric one. The flora turns out to be at the same time fossil and contemporary and reflects a strong dramatic and expressive dimension, even epic, suspended between natural and artificial world.
Fonderia Nolana has collaborate with Rondinone to the complex realisation of the original project to be sure to render all the surface details.
Behind the realisation of this work there is a meticulous work of assembling and chiselling of the surfaces, since every work is divided in more than 100 elements welded and chiselled together. The works were finalised using the technique of lost-wax casting in aluminium, while the surfaces were painted white.