Gilmour & Mathis. L'arte contemporanea incontra l'industria

The relationship between art and industry has deep roots and has always coincided with revolutions and even with the current crisis in our economic systems. Early twentieth-century Futurism praised mechanical dynamism and the speed of a society at war, while after the Second World War, Pop Art in America and Nouveau Réalisme in France used the products of industry as an aesthetic object tout court, nude and raw.
The importance of industry, the value of work and of genius loci are seen and experienced as the basis of an active, competitive society which is tired of building on its ruins and reviving its ghosts.
It is much better to have an industry made up of people of flesh and bone working to build a better future. The beating heart of the economy and its encounter with art are the themes of this exhibition, in which today's need for realism is met, without emotional filters but rather with a certain realist spirit.
Jill Mathis and Chris Gilmour worked in close contact with the workers at Guidi srl, discovering the aesthetics of technology, equipment and the people who use it. They encountered the workers' hands, the products of their labor, the idea that becomes industrial design. Different in origins, background and parlance - Gilmour is a British sculptor who lives in Udine; Jill Mathis is a photographer from Texas who also lives in Italy - the two artists came to the factory and left it with two highly personal stories: the dynamism of manual and mechanical work, and the microscopic design of the plant's technology.