TOTEM

TOTEM
“With Totem I have created ex-voto, idols or altars that seem accumulate mysterious energies. They were born to exorcise my inner demons, but then they reach a balance between gravity and lightness, between tragedy and irony of life. However they help me in a storytelling of resilience.
The scale is changeable, a rhythm that ranges from the smallest to the gigantic, the shapes are statuary subjects or they pervade the space becoming a container. From that universe, ancestral and enigmatic forms, that I am still exploring, have also sprung from surgical sectioning, if we may say so.”

THE EXHIBITION
The title Totem is clear and simple, reflecting a fascination with the primitive, the profound, the arcane. The perspective of the exhibition, to use the words of Claude Lévi-Strauss in Tristes Tropiques, does not show “how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men’s minds without their being aware of the fact.”
The artist deals with the theme of resilience through an work composed of a series of 20 sculptures, paintings and bass-relief, including several giant works and an installation in which visitors can walk.
All the works have been made specifically for this project, and many of them are shown in public for the rst time.
Many different materials have been used: bronze, steel, glass, stone, crafted metal, inflatable structures, monitors, wood, plastic, metal, water, sand, Corten, ropes and fabrics, paper, lights.
The Totem project is conceived as an exhibition in progress. At each iteraction, it will be expanded with new works, including site-specic pieces.

THE ARCHETYPE
The exhibition is organized around a central character: the Prono (prone one, procumbent).
We are faced with the invention of a contemporary archetype that to some extent establishes a dialogue with the Vitruvian Man drawn by Leonardo. The Prono is a character represented in different contexts, languages and formats, without ever losing his identity, even when joined by a series of collateral factors and figures.
He is solid, geometric, archaic and pop at the same time. He resonates with overtones of the statues of Easter Island, of Mayan and Aztec image- ry, but also Japanese manga and UFO-robots, graf ti and comics.
He spreads tangible spiritual energy, a sense of mystery and pursuit of the meaning of existence.
Like many archetypes, he has a dual nature. On all fours, a sign of sacri ce and subjugation, the typical posture of the oppressed. But at the same time an accumulator of energy. In the massive body, we sense the tension of a sprinter at the starting blocks. A creature utterly alert, waiting for the signal to leap forward. To break free of any constraints, any inhibition.
It is no coincidence that Prono reminds us of another mythological figure: Cronus, the Titan son of Uranus (sky) and Gaia (earth). Prono is the symbol of the potential redemption that lies within us.
He bows on the ground, but gazes forward. Beyond the horizon.
Totem has the aim of establishing a dialogue with open space, of contaminating natural environments, urban centers, post-industrial suburbs with its simple, potent language. A fecundation that restores life and creative ferment to decayed areas or abandoned public and private resources.

THE TECHNOLOGIES
Totem stands out for the fact that it is research initiated, cultivated and developed in the virtual world. Its eventual tangible, physical existence was not inevitable. That passage has also been made possible byto- day’s di 3D printing technologies, which can finally come to terms with the large scale, and make the on-demand philosophy feasible also in the world of art.
Alessandro Pongan has combined the languages of set design, graphic design, video and 3D animation in a powerful, autonomous language capable of keeping pace with the technological impetus, becoming its result at the same time.
To do this in his artistic practice, for years Pongan has used a multitude of programs, and he devotes a great deal of time to the updating of his expertise and experimentation in the use of software.
Totem therefore encourages the viewer to establish a closer dialogue with technologies, exploring their in nite possibilities without being engulfed by them.