In support of the truth of artistic research, it is important to bear in mind the axiom that, although the artwork is a system of relationships, it remains an attempt toward the singular: so much so that the creative idea may belong to the collective, while the image generated concerns only the artist[1]. It is the outcome of a symbiotic action between the material and the creator, therefore it is a mistake to think of artworks as acts; rather, they represent the result of a precise event in relation to what, despite its mutability and uncertain nature, belongs to the author. Each work, therefore, encapsulates a story, tied to a singular journey between the artist, his/her inner world, and the essence of the material – elements that must inevitably confront the infinite interpretations in the eyes of the viewer. It is precisely on these rich correspondences that the project Testa salpa, which Marco Emmanuele (1986, Catania) conceived for the Operativa Arte Contemporanea gallery in Rome, develops. The exhibition, open until February 15, 2025, brings to light new relationships the artist establishes with glass and paper, prompting the question of whether the result of this determined research flirts with the illusion of a rhetoric of forms. In fact, nothing is more seductive and far from that formality; on the contrary, the work, executed with clear insight, has allowed Emmanuele to create extremely plastic and harmonious shapes, but at the same time rich in ‘unexpectedness’.

Marco Emmanuele, “Testa salpa”, installation view, courtesy Operativa Arte Contemporanea, Roma, ph. credit Eleonora Cerri Pecorella
The glass sculptures, melted by Emmanuele in the Roman furnace at Testa di Lepre, are distinguished by their random character: the imperfections in the material, such as bubbles and internal filaments, are generated by natural states that recycled glass assumes when melted at temperatures above a thousand degrees. This aspect of accidentalness also characterizes the Carte celesti series, whose tonal traces on Hahnemühle paper were drawn by snails that freely crossed the watercolored surface. Thus, what is exhibited presents itself as a happy incident of matter in relation to both exogenous and endogenous factors. This eventuality should not be understood as the randomness of an act performed without intellect, but rather as an event within the context of the artist’s rare skill in generating imperfections as precious additions. To be clearer, in this project, Emmanuele demonstrates the ability to inhabit two worlds simultaneously, reconciling their different visions, so that what is displayed is never what it seems. In fact, the glass works, in delicate balance on steel structures, if illuminated with grazing light, cast the shadows of the facial profiles of poets whose readings inspired Emmanuele in the drawing enclosed within them. All the works live on opposing forces: the weight of the glass relates to the upward thrust of the lightness of the metals supporting them, Emmanuele’s disciplined and methodical reading of the poem’s contrasts with the free and unbound visual interpretation of these sources, and finally, the material is indeed shaped, but still remains a free, living and active mass.

Marco Emmanuele, “Testa salpa”, installation view, courtesy Operativa Arte Contemporanea, Roma, ph. credit Eleonora Cerri Pecorella
Therefore, it is natural that in Testa salpa, the more rational and thoughtful character of the work undertaken by Emmanuele a year ago emerges. This combines his poetic reading, which he has practiced since the age of sixteen and has focused, for the past two years, primarily on national authors dealing with the theme of the sea. Thus, after years of patient study and deepening, the laborious soul of the project naturally arises, like a natural flow of actions that saw the artist work according to two procedures: the uninterrupted reading of poetic sources, their internalization and the emergence of a vision fixed on paper. This approach aligns with what Deleuze[2] said about poetry, and therefore, Emmanuele also considers it as the quintessential symbolic practice: moving beyond appearance, it gives shape to a thought in motion, incarnating it in a tangible object.

Marco Emmanuele, “Testa salpa”, installation view, courtesy Operativa Arte Contemporanea, Roma, ph. credit Eleonora Cerri Pecorella
Thus, it is natural that each sculpture in the form of a head acquires an additional value, in which the form, without adapting to any specific meaning, no longer signifies only what it represents but intends to allude to something beyond appearance. Therefore, by acting with extreme mobility – both due to the unpredictable nature of the material and because poetry is not viewed as a simple linguistic operation – the artist is able to break, deactivate and make inoperative the communicative and informative functions of the poetic sources, opening them to something entirely new, to a new possible use [3]. At this point, it is clear that for Emmanuele the new purpose of poetry is to make a pure form of paper blossom, in which poetry, in its most refined expression, brings to light the relationships between the concepts of expression, communication and vision.

Marco Emmanuele, “Testa salpa”, installation view, courtesy Operativa Arte Contemporanea, Roma, ph. credit Eleonora Cerri Pecorella
It is precisely from this doubt that the entire project emerges as the result of a mindset, an action both profound and playful, valuable in its ability to speak to us with such force in the projection of the virtuality of a blank paper sheet. After all the title Testa salpa – a reference to the ancient Roman custom of eating fish to induce hallucinatory effects, or alternatively, the allusion to the image of a head setting sail – reveals how game is essential for Emmanuele, not as an action aimed at amusement, but as an element of mystery, a stimulus for thought, where the most rational part ceases to exist. Moreover, the exhibition, marked by different states of technical development, clearly reveals Emmanuele’s evolution in relation to the transformation of the materials themselves. It is precisely this aspect, which has been excessively emphasized by critics, that proves secondary. Each work, in fact, regardless of the technique used, is the result of an experiment establishing visual interactions, chemical relationships and strange states of equilibrium. Thus, for Emmanuele, the work is not the product of technical mastery or an act of inertia, but rather the sum of layered practical ideas, whether on the smooth or rough surface of paper, or on the volume and density of glass.

Marco Emmanuele, “Testa salpa”, installation view, courtesy Operativa Arte Contemporanea, Roma, ph. credit Eleonora Cerri Pecorella
From this emerges the paradox that the most minute, fragile, and hidden element of the entire exhibition contains the entire life of the project. In particular, the drawings collected within the glass heads should be carefully noted, as they are solitary and intimate pulses that help to combine poetry and vision. Although the papers do not present any clear or immediate deciphering, being displayed in a three-dimensional space, they are not flat, leveled, rigid or cold. Rather, to the eye of the observer, they are a living material for a hidden dream. Therefore, it is precisely the small drawings that stimulate interest: works executed with the minimum means, without the use of technical artifices, traced with a few lines of graphite, in the silence of a white sheet, they are instantaneous visions that speak intensely to Emmanuele’s spirit.

Marco Emmanuele, “Testa salpa”, installation view, courtesy Operativa Arte Contemporanea, Roma, ph. credit Eleonora Cerri Pecorella
These choices bring to the surface the weight and study of the research, making them the starting point and future opening of the entire project. Thus, by identifying the value and potential of an apparently insignificant blank page, Emmanuele recognizes the potential of all material, especially regarding glass and the different qualities of paper, from which inner visions radiating warmth and freedom take shape and meaning.
Maria Vittoria Pinotti
[1] Henri Focillon, Vita delle forme, seguito da Elogio della mano, Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, Torino, 2002, p. 3
[2] Gilles Deleuze, Immanenza. Una vita…, Mimesis Edizioni, 2010, Milano, p. 24
[3] Giorgio Agamben, Che cos’è l’atto di creazione, in La mente sgombra, Giulio Einaudi Editore, Torino, 2023, p. 240
Info:
Marco Emmanuele. Testa salpa
Operativa Arte Contemporanea
30/12/2024 – 15/02/2025
Thursday and Friday from 4pm to 7pm or by appointment
www.operativa-arte.com
Via del Consolato 10, 00186, Roma

Maria Vittoria Pinotti (1986, San Benedetto del Tronto) is an art historian, author, and independent critic. She currently is the coordinator of Claudio Abate’s photographic archive and Manager at Elena Bellantoni’s Studio. From 2016 to 2023 she was the Gallery Manager in a gallery in the historic center of Rome. She has worked with ministerial offices such as the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Culture and the Central State Archive. Currently, she collaborates with cultural sector magazines, focusing on in-depth thematic studies dedicated to modern and contemporary art.
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