I made sails come to shore in my work, not to abandon them to the oblivion of unknown ports. My sails have become part of my everyday life, transparent and light, they do not harness the power of the wind, but air is always their usual element. Air allows us to perceive sounds and colours, and that is what my sails do and will do.
Vasco Are
Vele di Natale (Chrismas Sails) consist of triangular wooden frames with a wire mesh where bells and coloured plexiglass fragments that refract light, are attached to. The tubes of green bulbs along the edges are reminiscent of Christmas trees, and the sound of the bells creates a fairy-tale effect that, in the artist’s intentions, also recalls the image of kites or the grease pole game.
The poet Nico Orengo recounted his friend Vasco Are’s love of puns, and it is no coincidence that the title of the work presents an ambiguity: not “trees”, but “sails”. For Are, the sails recall the adventurous imagery of Emilio Salgari and Robert Louis Stevenson, pirates and vikings.
Active in Turin since the 1960s, he founded the publishing house Pithecanthropus with Gianni Milano and Tucci Russo in 1967. His work, characterised by a sensitivity to ecological themes reflected in the frequent use of recycled materials, developed in the different languages of poetry, painting, film and sculpture.
Silvia Maria Sara Cammarata
Current Location
Piazza Bodoni, Turin
Previous locations
in 1998 in Via Monferrato; in 1999 in Via Arquata; in 2000 in Piazza Crispi; in 2001 in Via Bertola; in 2002 in Largo Saluzzo; in 2003 the work was requested on loan in Sestriere (Turin); in 2004 in Cesana (Turin); in 2005 and 2006 in Largo Bertola; in 2007 in Salerno; in 2008 in Largo Borgo Dora; in 2009 it was requested on loan in Venaria Reale (Turin); in 2011 in via Carlo Alberto (from via Po to piazza Carlo Alberto); in 2012 in via Lagrange; in 2013 in via Maria Vittoria; in 2014 in via San Francesco d'Assisi; in 2015 and 2016 in via Lagrange; in 2017 in piazza Derna; from 2018 to 2022 in piazza Foroni; from 2023 to present in Piazza Bodoni.
Specifiche tecniche
Wood, LED neon flex, light bulbs, wire mesh, coloured plexiglass fragments and bronze and brass bells.
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Catalogo Allemandi & C 2000 -
Catalogo Allemandi & C 1999 -
Paola Zuliani 2012 -
Piazza Bodoni 2023
